An Etgar Keret Short Story

Suddenly, the Same Thing
By ETGAR KERET

"I just hate terrorist attacks," the thin nurse says to the older one. "Want some gum?"

The older one takes a piece and nods. "What can you do?" she says. "I hate emergencies, too."

"It's not the emergencies," the thin one insists. "I have no problem with accidents and things. It's the terrorist attacks, I'm telling you. They put a damper on everything."

Sitting on the bench outside the maternity ward, I think to myself, She has a point. I just got here an hour ago, all excited, with my wife and a neat-freak taxi driver who, when my wife's water broke, was afraid it would ruin his upholstery. And now I'm sitting in the hallway feeling glum, waiting for the staff to come back from the E.R. Everyone but the two nurses has gone to help treat the people injured in the attack. My wife's contractions have slowed down, too. Probably even the baby feels this whole getting-born thing isn't that urgent anymore. A few of the injured roll past me on squeaking gurneys. In the taxi on the way to the hospital, my wife screamed like a madwoman, but these people are all quiet.

"Are you Etgar Keret?" a guy wearing a checked shirt asks me. "The writer?" I nod reluctantly. "Well, what do you know?" he says, pulling a tiny tape recorder out of his bag. "Where were you when it happened?" he asks. When I hesitate for a second, he says in a show of empathy: "Take your time. Don't feel pressured. You've been through a trauma."

"I wasn't in the attack." I explain. "I just happen to be here today. My wife's giving birth."

"Oh," he says, not trying to hide his disappointment, and presses the stop button on his tape recorder. "Mazel tov." Now he sits down next to me and lights himself a cigarette.

"Maybe you should try talking to someone else," I suggest in an attempt to get the Lucky Strike smoke out of my face. "A minute ago, I saw them take two people into neurology."

"Russians," he says with a sigh, "don't know a word of Hebrew. Besides, they don't let you into neurology anyway. This is my seventh attack in this hospital, and I know all their shtick by now." We sit there for a minute without talking. He's about 10 years younger than I am but starting to go bald. When he catches me looking at him, he smiles and says: "Too bad you weren't there. A reaction from a writer would've been good for my article. Someone original, someone with a little vision. After every attack, I always get the same reactions: 'Suddenly, I heard a boom'; 'I don't know what happened'; 'Everything was covered in blood.' How much of that can you take?"

"It's not their fault," I say. "It's just that the attacks are always the same. What kind of original thing can you say about an explosion and senseless death?"

"Beats me," he says with a shrug. "You're the writer."

Some people in white jackets are starting to come back from the E.R. on their way to the maternity ward. "You're from Tel Aviv," the reporter says to me, "so why'd you come all the way to this dump to give birth?"

"We wanted a natural birth; their department here — "

"Natural?" he interrupts, sniggering. "What's natural about a midget with a cable hanging from his bellybutton popping out of your wife's vagina?" I don't even try to respond. "I told my wife," he continues, " 'If you ever give birth, only by Caesarean section, like in America. I don't want some baby stretching you out of shape for me.' Nowadays, it's only in primitive countries like this that women give birth like animals. Yallah, I'm going to work." Starting to get up, he tries one more time. "Maybe you have something to say about the attack anyway?" he asks. "Did it change anything for you? Like what you're going to name the baby or something, I don't know." I smile apologetically. "Never mind," he says with a wink. "I hope it goes easy, man."

Six hours later, a midget with a cable hanging from his bellybutton comes popping out of my wife's vagina and immediately starts to cry. I try to calm him down, to convince him that there's nothing to worry about. That by the time he grows up, everything here in the Middle East will be settled: peace will come, there won't be any more terrorist attacks and even if once in a blue moon there is one, there will always be someone original, someone with a little vision around to describe it perfectly. He quiets down for a minute and then considers his next move. He's supposed to be naïve — seeing as how he's a newborn — but even he doesn't buy it, and after a second's hesitation and a small hiccup, he goes back to crying.

My Letter in Today's Sunday London Times

I have a letter published in today's Sunday London Times:-

BAD EXAMPLE:

Michael Portillo (To spread democracy you have to let bad guys win, Comment, last week) arguing in favour of dialogue with Hamas notes that “terrorist organisations do sometimes metamorphose into law-abiding political parties”.

To justify this, he recalls Menachem Begin and the Irgun attack on British forces in Jerusalem’s King David hotel. Irgun tactics never included non-recognition of Britain’s right to exist nor did it engage in a campaign directed at civilians. When attacking targets that could have posed a danger for noncombatants, warnings were always distributed.

— Yisrael Medad, Efrayim, Israel.

This was the original text and notice (in bold) the two sentences dropped:-

Michael Portillo argues in favor of dialoguing with Hamas ("To spread democracy you have to let bad guys win", Feb. 5) and notes that "terrorist organisations do sometimes metamorphose into law-abiding political parties". To justify this, he recalls Menachem Begin, an Israeli prime minister and Nobel peace prize winner, and the Irgun attack on British forces in Jerusalem ’s King David hotel.

The Irgun's tactics while Begin was commander never included non-recognition of Britain's right to exist nor did it engage in a campaign directed solely at civilians. It was not based a a perverse religious fundamentalism. When attacking targets that could have posed a danger for non-combatants, warnings were always distributed. Mr. Portillo's comparsion is poorly drawn.

A Thin Veneer of Hate and Fear

Doron Rosenblum has a satire in the Ha'Aretz Magazine that is an expression of hate and fear - the worst kind of reaction because instead of being funny it comes out, if you read it, as spiteful, malicious and demeaning, and false.

Excerpts:

I dreamt I went to Netzarim again.

Evocations of the nostalgic sights passed before my mind's eye: Here is the three-story home with the big flower pot that hides Rafah ... Here is the rusty watchtower at the entrance again, covered with camouflage rags, and again the sand hills and the fences and the army base, and behind them looms that aesthetic and security blight, which we demanded over and over be removed - Gaza City ... And here we are, the lords of the land, owners of the estate called Land o' Israel and the property called the Nation o' Israel - here we are passing like victors through the checkpoint, between the barbed wire, escorted by an APC and a jeep of the tyrant's troops with the hobnailed boots - er, sorry (I am getting ahead of myself) - I mean Israel Defense Forces soldiers, who were then still our faithful watchdogs...

I tried to move my let-my-right-hand-forget and immediately felt in my arm that dull, Jewish, traumatic pain: in part the pain of one who picked up a refrigerator to smash the head of the tyrant, in part the pain of one who brandished a fist at the Cossack from the Border Police: "Executioner! Here is my throat - come and slaughter!" On the other hand, it might be rheumatism.

But it was a pity to waste it. So I hastened to the television studio with my hand in a sling,...The interviewer didn't quite follow my logic, and the truth is that I got entangled myself. So I attacked: Why are you all so hostile? Just because we call you Nazis? Because the finest of our youth threw a few bricks at you? Just because we dictated your agenda with force and cunning for a third of a century and destroyed any chance of a peace agreement?

We didn't have anything to do in the evening, so we streamed into Zion Square in Jerusalem again, to demonstrate. What's that supposed to mean - against what? You stream to Zion Square first of all because of the force of gravity and then you think, why, actually. Besides, all the props and slogans are already ready - all we have to do is switch and update the picture of the latest Israeli prime minister - the latest traitor - and stick his face below the image of the kaffiyeh or above the image of the SS uniform: Rabin, Peres, Barak, Sharon, Olmert, and Bibi too. Every prime minister, be it Eldad or SpongeBob SquarePants, will get his pulsa denura when his day comes.

I was a bit sorry when the demonstration ended. It was like coming out of a warm sauna into the cold air. But regrettably, we have to live in the breaks between the demos, too. If only we could fence off Zion Square and stay there forever, like children in an eternal religious kindergarten...

I looked around and was a bit ashamed of my colleagues: groups of wild-eyed, hate-consumed fanatics whose messianic pioneering has been replaced by loathing and by subversion against the state itself. It was a bit insulting that they looked at me in the same way, as I wrapped the tallit around my chin and pulled my orange headband tighter.

Last night I dreamt I went to Zion Square again.
As I was leaving the square a weird type came up and said, What is it you actually want? Why are you screaming and howling and rattling and twisting? Don't you understand that the majority of the public just doesn?t want the territories? That the die has been cast?

I guffawed with hope, like Bibi: Wait, wait; tomorrow there will be a big terrorist attack, which will just go to show.

And, I suppose, he blames us for the suicide-bombers and other terrorists. It is he who wishes to have both the hate of us and the groveling/kneeling before the terror so he can move back into his own little "Zion Square", the State of Israel a la pre-67 borders.

ABC News Waylaid

ABC's "World News Tonight," scrambling to fill the gap left by its injured anchor, Bob Woodruff, is facing further instability: Elizabeth Vargas, Woodruff's co-anchor, is pregnant.
Vargas and her husband, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, are expecting their second child in late summer, they announced Friday. The couple have a son, Zachary, 3, and Cohn has two children - Max, 14, and Emily, 11 - from a previous marriage.
Vargas, who with John Stossel also co-anchors the ABC newsmagazine "20/20," will continue to anchor both programs through late summer.

"I told Elizabeth that during such a difficult time for all of us, it's good to get such wonderful, life-affirming news," ABC News President David Westin said in a statement.

Vargas, 43, and Woodruff, 44, debuted as "World News Tonight" co-anchors Jan. 3.

Photog Prize - and the Subject?

Haaretz photographer Uriel Sinai took first prize in the World Press Photo photography contest, in the category of general news.


And what was the pic?

Here he explains:

"I am driven by the unexplainable need to continuously take picture after picture," Sinai said.

"I think that the interest in photography comes from people's desire to see something through another's eyes. There are hundreds like me, in Israel and in the territories, Israelis and Palestinians, who every day crawl through the dirt, and risk their lives, all to tell a story," he continued.

Sinai lived in Gush Katif for 3 months before the disengagement, and photographed the lead-up to the evacuation and the evacuation itself.

"The evacuation was very hard on me," he acknowledged.

"I lived there and came to understand the people. Regardless of my opinion of the evacuation, I found myself identifying with them and their cause," Sinai said.

What Next?

The New York Times reports:

Doctors observed that Mr. Sharon's abdomen was swollen, and after conducting a CT scan, he was taken into surgery on Saturday morning, Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director of the hospital, said at a news conference. Surgeons found damage to part of his large intestine and removed about 20 inches, Dr. Mor-Yosef said.

Hospital officials initially said Mr. Sharon's life was in danger. But after the four-hour operation, Dr. Mor-Yosef said, "The situation is serious, it is stable, it is critical, but there is no immediate danger to the life of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."

Despite being overweight, Mr. Sharon was generally healthy during his tenure as prime minister.

Hmmm.

First his brain.

Then his heart.

Now his kishkes or, better this kishkes.

Caricature Chronology

The National Post has this chronology of the caricature campaign and notice the role of a Palestinian cleric:

Nothing 'spontaneous' about it

Amir Taheri

...the whole rigmarole was launched by Islamist groups in Europe and Asia, with Mr. Ahmadinejad and his Syrian vassal, President Bashar al-Assad, playing catch-up. God had nothing to do with it.

HERE IS THE CHRONOLOGY:

- The cartoons originally were published last September and, for more than three months, caused no ripples outside small groups of Islamist in Denmark.

- In December, a group of Danish Muslim militants, led by 60-year-old Palestinian imam Abu-Laban, filled suitcases with photocopies of the cartoons and embarked on a tour of Muslim capitals.

The group did something dishonest: It added a number of far more derogatory cartoons of the Prophet to the 12 published by the Jyalland Posten, and misled interlocutors in Muslim capitals into believing that all had appeared in the Danish press.

- In Cairo, the group was told by the Muslim Brotherhood that this was not the time to kick up a fuss over the cartoons. The Brotherhood was busy plotting its election strategy and pretending to be a "moderate" political party. The last thing it wanted was to be branded as a rabid anti-West force. Brotherhood leaders suggested the matter be put on ice until January.

The Danish militants received a similar reply from Hamas, which was then trying to win the Palestinian general election, and needed to assuage at least part of the Palestinian middle classes.

- The Danish Muslim emissaries found a more sympathetic audience in Qatar, base of the satellite television channel Al-Jazeera. The channel's chief Islamist televangelist, Yussuf al-Qaradawi, was all too keen to issue a fatwa. He then mobilized his network of militants in Europe to attack the cartoons, claiming the Danish paper had violated "an absolute principle of The Only True Faith."

- As the first rent-a-mob crowds appeared on global TV screens, Ahmadinejad realized this was a cow worth milking.

Amos Oz Offs It Again

Yes, Amoz Oz, Israel's secular prophet and left-chiq hearthrob, has expressed his opinion again.

He was interviewed by Jon Wiener in The Nation on the occasion of the publication of his new book, (get this) - How to Cure a Fanatic, and among things was quoted as saying:-

Did Palestinians vote for Hamas because they are fanatics?

Not necessarily. As I read the situation, and as I hear from my Palestinian friends and colleagues, the prime reason for the Hamas victory is the alleged corruption of the Palestinian Authority and its leading movement, Fatah.

In your book you argue that fanaticism is not necessarily a permanent condition. You say that as a child you were "a brainwashed little fanatic all the way." What made you a young fanatic, and what made you change?

I grew up in a militant atmosphere in a painfully divided Jerusalem, in times of bitter conflict and rivalry. I grew up as a very enthusiastic one-sided Zionist. Over the course of the years, and through some personal experiences, I have discovered that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like many other conflicts, has two sides, two perspectives, perhaps two logics. The moment you discover this kind of moral and political relativity, you are no longer a fanatic.

Over the past decade, part of the Palestinian movement moved away from what you call fanaticism toward what you call pragmatism.

Not only part of the Palestinian movement--I believe the majority of the Palestinian people now have a pragmatic approach and a realistic attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A majority of the Palestinians--and a majority of the Israelis--know now that, at the end of the day, there is going to be a compromise, a sharing, a two-state solution. Are they happy about it? No. Will there be dancing in the streets once this solution is implemented? Certainly not. Do they regard it as just, or secure, or safe? Probably not. But they accept this as the only possible solution, as the bottom line. This is true of the Israeli Jews, and this is true of the Palestinian Arabs.

Is there evidence since the election of Hamas that a majority of Palestinians still favor a two-state solution?

Public opinion surveys in Palestine week after week after week, for over three years now, including during the worst days of the violent intifada--those surveys show that a majority of Palestinians are prepared to live, unhappily, with a two-state solution. They don't trust the Israelis, but they will accept it. By the same token, like a mirror image, the majority of Israelis will accept this solution, but don't trust the Palestinians to accept and respect it.

He goes on and on.

This is What Tzedakah is all About

While this is not an endorsement and there are many other funds about, I thought that the variety of what is being done by Jews abroad and what is needed to be done should get another outlet.

So, read on:-

Subject: All4Israel January Mission: Hugs, Tears, and Success!

Thanks to our generous donors, volunteers and partners, my visit to Israel last month was our most successful "tzedeka tours" to date. We visited over 50 families affected by terrorism and dozens of families expelled from Gush Katif.

In addition to the several hundred families who received monetary grants from All4Israel, our Healing Hands program provided medical assistance to several badly injured terror victims, both here in the United States and in Israel. Each of the families I visited left an incredible impression on me. Their faith, strength and resilience are extraordinary. I am more committed than ever to continuing this essential work. I want to take a few moments to share some of my impressions. After all, you and your fellow All4Israel supporters are what make our chesed missions possible.

. We met with the Shok family, whose father/husband Yossi Z"L HY"D was murdered less than two months ago leaving Sagit a young widow with five children. Sagit told us how the three older boys argue about who misses their beloved father the most.

. Meeting Rachel S. - Had the honor of meeting Naomi Ragen who took us to Meha Shearim to meet Rachel. Seeing the conditions of her apartment & Rachel on a respirator was gut wrenching. Her living conditions are deplorable. All4Israel is honored to be involved with Naomi in moving Rachel to a new apartment in Tzfat.

. Hero cop Gary, who is in a special police force in charge of tracking terrorists. Gary was shot in the head after his unit eliminated the terrorist responsible for the Stage Club, Chadera and both of the two Netanya bombings. His wife, a policewoman and four young children (ages 2 months to 8years old) are praying for his recovery. Gary's wife was on maternity leave which has expired. All4Israel will pay her salary until her husband recovers and she can go back to work. Now the family can concentrate on Gary's recovery instead of worrying about paying their bills!

. Itzik Buzaglo Z"L HY"D was murdered nearly a year ago, leaving behind Linda and their two children. Linda was critically injured in the same bombing and spent months in the hospital. She continues to need medical treatment. The couple had been waiting for six years to move into a new home but the fatal tragedy put that dream on hold . . . until now. With the help of donors like you, All4Israel was able to buy $7,000 in appliances which will enable them to move into their new home very shortly. Several families from Newport Beach, California have "adopted" the Buzaglo's, and are providing additional financial, emotional & social support.

. Cooling the pain. Last summer, 16-year-old Bettie Levi was injured in the Netanya mall bombing. All4Israel has previously helped the Levi family with a number of expenses, including an air conditioner to help relieve the horrific pain Bettie suffers from exposure to any heat. Now, we have arranged for Bettie to visit with
one of the world's leading plastic surgeons who will evaluate her condition and recommend a course of treatment --- if necessary, she will be sponsored by our
Healing Hands program to come to New York.

. Rachel Cohen lost her son, St.-Sgt. Kevin Cohen Z"L HY"D in a terrorist attack on 8/20/02. The family continues to suffer greatly from the loss of their son as well as from the discomfort and indignity of their impoverished situation. Kevin's family did not even have beds in their bedrooms - they were sleeping on thin mattresses - All4Israel will provide beds. We will also provide monthly financial aid until their condition improves.

. Five surgeries - and counting. Yael Ben Chamu was severely injured in a Jerusalem bus bombing in January 2004. The young woman sustained many painful burns and injuries, which have required - and will continue to require - many operations. Yael is committed to moving on with her life, and All4Israel has been there to help, enabling Yael to attend law school with tuition assistance and emotional support.

. Dror Zicherman is a hero. On 12/29/05, Dror and Uri Binamo Z"L HY"D, intercepted two terrorists who were carrying large explosive belts, thus preventing a deadly attack in Netanya on Chanukah. Dror may never walk again, but as he says, "If I lose my leg and saved dozens of kids on Chanukah, I accept it." We were happy to honor Dror's request for a laptop computer. It was delivered by our wonderful partners Menachem Kutner & Jeremy Goldzal.

. Let them eat chicken. Rivka Madar helps to feed and supply household necessities to 70 families in Nitzan but can only afford 200 chickens each month. That means chicken only once a month for those poor families. Our goal is to make it possible for Rivka to give out 200 chickens each week - because no Jew should ever be hungry on Shabbat.

. From despair to determination. Three years ago, Inbal Davidi's father was severely injured when a suicide bomber boarded the bus he was driving. Since then, the family has suffered a number of financial setbacks. Inbal, a strong and determined young woman, decided to pursue a law school education so that she could support her younger siblings and parents. She was cleaning houses and doing any odd jobs people would hire her for, attending law school, and taking care of her family,
all at the same time - a daunting burden, to say the least.

All4Israel helped Inbal cover her tuition expenses, and - well, we'll let Inbal herself tell you the rest of the story:

Last year, a dear man, Zalman Indig heard about my condition and offered to help me with my studying payments. I can't explain how I felt in that very moment, I felt like G-d knew how hard it was for me and sent Zalman to help me. Every time I thank Zalman for what he is doing for me, and for all the help that he is giving to my family, he keeps saying that I shouldn't thank him, because he couldn't do it
without all the Americans who open their hearts and donate money. That money helps us to go on in life and fulfill our dreams, even with the bad times we had, I finished my studying very successfully and I start to work in a law office for the next year. After the final exam, I will be a lawyer!

I want to thank you all for helping me fulfill my dreams and for helping may family in very bad times and for giving us hope to go on with our lives. The Bible says, "am Israel arevim ze laze" - "all Israel takes care of each other". You make this sentence come true. AND SO, MY FRIENDS, DO YOU!

So please - for Inbal, Rivka, Dror, Yael, Rachel, Bettie, the Buzaglo and Shok families, and the hundreds of other families your support has made possible, please keep helping by giving whatever you can whenever you can. As you can see, your support can make a vital difference - and continue to do a world of good.

You can make your donation online in less than one minute!
Just visit.

Or mail your donation to:

All4Israel
53 Dewhurst Street
Staten Island, NY 10314
877-812-7162

Thank you, and G-d bless you!

Sincerely,

Mr. Zalman Indig
Director
All4Israel

Pollard Seeks Another Day in Court

Having been a member of the original Knesset lobby on behalf of Jonathan Pollard and his then wife, Ann Henderson, I have followed the case closlely and less so since 1985. I visited Jay in jail twice, in 1990 and 1993.

Jonathan Pollard's attorneys filed a Petition for Certiorari in US Supreme Court yesterday. In their brief they say:

We intend to present the President with a petition for executive clemency so that the miscarriage of justice can be brought to an end. In order for us to prepare and submit an effective petition for executive clemency, it is essential that we be afforded access to the materials submitted to the court (by both sides) shortly before Mr. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987, so that we can study and evaluate the full court record.

Approximately 40 pages of pre-sentencing docket materials were deemed classified and, pursuant to a protective order, were placed under seal by the court in 1987. Although the protective order contemplated future access by Mr. Pollard's successor counsel, no attorney or representative of Mr. Pollard has been allowed to see these materials since then. Even though we have the appropriate security clearance and a demonstrated "need to know," the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) refuses to allow us to see the documents. By contrast, the DOJ has repeatedly allowed its own personnel access to these very documents in order to bolster the DOJ's opposition to
executive clemency.

But what's the problem?

While disputing our right to have access to the sealed docket materials, the Government never challenged the court's jurisdiction to allow such access, and, to the contrary, expressly conceded jurisdiction in its brief to the Court of Appeals. Nevertheless, at oral argument in the Court of Appeals on March 15, 2005, one judge suddenly, on his own, (???) asserted that there was a serious and obvious jurisdictional issue. If so, it had entirely escaped the notice of two Chief Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (both of whom had addressed the access issue without expressing any jurisdictional concern), as well as a battery of senior Department of Justice attorneys, seven of whom had signed the Government's brief that readily conceded jurisdiction.

Nevertheless, in a written opinion issued July 22, 2005, two members of the
three-judge panel decided that the court lacks jurisdiction to allow Mr. Pollard's counsel access to the court docket materials. The stated rationale was that the doctrine of separation of powers somehow deprives a federal court of jurisdiction and control over its own docket materials if counsel seeks access to the materials in contemplation of an application for executive clemency. No court has ever held that, or anything close to that.

In a ten-page dissent, Judge Judith Rogers held that jurisdiction plainly exists, and that access to the court docket was expressly provided for in the district court's protective order pursuant to which the documents had been placed under seal.

The majority's ruling is an unprecedented and unsupportable distortion of the doctrine of separation of powers. We look to the Supreme Court to review the split decision of the Court of Appeals, and upon review, to reverse.

I do hope that this time, someone in the system will find the courage to right this wrong.

"Blow Up" Like in Suicide Bomber?

Sorry, but I couldn't let this news item pass.

The latest public figure to stand accused of defiling the Prophet Mohamed is not some Danish cartoonist, or French newspaper editor, but a hapless British Page 3 girl called Emma B.

Yesterday, the erotic retailer Ann Summers unveiled Miss B as the "face" of its new range of products.

Not 24 hours later, she finds herself on the front line of Islamic protest after Muslim leaders discovered that the range includes a new blow-up doll, called "Mustafa Shag".

Unfortunately, Mustafa was one of the names given to the Prophet Mohamed. Bestowing it upon, in the words of its catalogue, "an inflatable escort for your hen-night adventures" is considered highly offensive.

The Manchester Central Mosque has already written to the firm, calling on it to withdraw the product, right.

"You have no idea how much hurt, anguish, and disgust this obnoxious phrase ["Mustafa Shag"] has caused to Muslim men, women and children," reads their letter.

"We are asking you to please relent on compassionate grounds, and have our Most Reverend Prophet's Name "Mustafa" (Peace Be Upon Him) and the afflicted word 'shag' removed as soon as possible."

Ann Summers was last night examining options, though its chief executive Jacqueline Gold was reluctant to withdraw the item from sale.

"We don't want to offend, but this feels like political correctness gone mad," she said. "If anyone has a better name for a blow-up doll, please let us know."

Well, do you have a better name?

Ahmed.

Amal.

Hussein.

Returning Jews

I have a friend who recently converted from Christianity who is a Catalan.

Here is some material on him and his thinking:

I can read, write and speak Spanish with proficiency. Spanish was the only language permitted at school. My mother and then my father (of blessed memory) taught me to read and write my mother language, Catalan, which was prohibited. Then, Mrs. Anna-Maria Sala, a neighbor in our town of Cadaques, near Gerona, taught me French.

I learned Latin at high school and then with my wife, and Italian, Portuguese, Occitan (called mostly Provencal), Esperanto, some German, some Greek, and, recently (in Israel) my poor English by myself. I'm studying Hebrew (and, of course, Torah). My business activity is related with communication (and, by the way, with lack of communication, too).

- - - -

Spanish nationalism is essentially anti-Jewish, anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-liberal, and, especially, anti-Catalan, because Catalonia is related with Israel and Judaism in several ways, and also she is related with the discovery of the Americas (probably, Columbus was Catalan , like Joan [John] Cabot, and "America" is a Catalan name [from Aimeric Despuig, supplanted by a faked Amerigo Vespuccio]. Also the American flag seems originated in the Catalan Royal flag, present in the Continent maps drawn during the sixteenth century and know in Philadelphia in 1776.

Spanish powers know everything about these kind of issues, like the Inquisition is the only source permitting me to know about my family, by now, for instance. Castile theft the discovery and prohibited to Catalan people to travel to America until the second half of the XVIII century (of course there are some exceptions, like my far-far relative Juniper , a Majorcan ben-Anussim, a friar who is considered a founder of California -- the family in Majorca managed in order to obtain a good relationship with the Church... it's a sad story)

The bnei-Anussim in Catalonia, a third of the population in certain areas, mixed with the rest of Catalan people and this explains the existence of a huge set of unconscious Jewish-Catalan customs, traditions and practices, like the offering of the bread and the salt (for instance: by the Mayor in the city of Barcelona, for whom it is a must), the cleaning and changing of bedsheets and tablecloths on Friday morning (this is called, in Majorca and Northern Catalonia, " fer dissabte" ["to make Saturday"]), the idea that every woman must teach to read her children at the age of three (like in my beloved mother's, Mrs. , case), the young men gatherings during the Sant Miquel's feast (in the last week of September) in order to build... huts (and stay there for a couple of days, if possible). I don't mention the lightning of candles because millions of Europeans do remember their grand-mother doing it. I don't mention to cover the slaughtered chickens and dukes' blood because it was a general custom I saw during my childhood (it was considered a custom of "peasant" and "ignorant" people).

Of course, we Catalan people perform these Jewish traditions in an absolutely unconscious way. We are Christian, Catholic people, and my wife, and I were Roman Catholic till the day ( ) we converted to Judaism. There are at least twenty-six generations between the last person who supposedly was a Jew in my family and me.

A Jew needs Consciousness and Community: without them there is no Am Yisrael. In fact, we, as Catalans, are only wretched souls. The Pope doesn't bless us ever in Catalan (and there are ten million of Catalan-speaking people, and Andorra, directly related to the Vatican, has Catalan as her only official language). [We] are witnesses that in order to perform a good conversion to Judaism a person needs a good relationship with HaShem and His Torah: the rest are unimportant details. Europeans need the same kind of process, if they wish to convert, that can be performed in America. It is a good reason to choose the conversion's ulpan related to the Rabbinical Council of America to convert, as we did.

We are, therefore, speaking about details. Harsh details related to Spanish and European policies. Spain needs Catalonia today in order to be financed. Catalonians do think like Jews: we love to work. If a development is anti-Catalan, of course that means it would be anti-human and racist. I sustain it would be anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli, too. Of course, it is difficult to see for a person unrelated with this kind of European suicidal developments.

You are unaware of our sufferings. All of this explains our difficulties to explain ourselves in the world. Every thought is thwarted by strange bugs. I will put an example over it to you: Pau Casals, more known as Pablo Casals, was a very good musician, composer and conductor. He performed the remembered gatherings in Marlboro, Vermont. He hold his last concert in Yemin Moshe, Jerusalem, two weeks before his passing. He composed the United Nations Anthem , with words of the poet W. H. Auden. In his speech before the General Assembly of the UN, he spoke about two main subjects: Catalonia and Peace -- in this exact order: first Catalonia ("the most important nation in the world"), and then Peace. Watching the film of that event, everybody can understand what Catalonia is, and my efforts would be less unbearable.

Alpher - Who Else?

Who holds this opinion?

Because Israel and Palestine are more than neighbors — because they are almost Siamese twins, difficult and dangerous to separate — it seems inevitable that, despite the barriers of ideology and antisemitism, despite Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel and Israel's refusal to talk to bigots who don't recognize it, eventually the two will simply have to talk.

Somewhere deep down in its Islamist psyche, Hamas understands that running the government of Palestine means dealing with the Jews next door in an equitable and civilized manner.

Yossi Joseph Alpher.

As Jonathan Tobin wrote:

It was bound to happen. As soon as Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, "moderates" were discovered in their midst.

We Jews are our own worst enemy.

Hamas Fashion Statement

This is Abu-Tir.




This is not Abu-Tir, Hamas chief of Jerusalem.

It's a Muslim cleric in Britain.


Are orange-tinted beards in vogue?

What is this - adoption of the anti-disengagement color?

But if you like red, go here and here and here for scenes from the peaceful, tranquil and quiet Ashura Shi'ite ceremonies.

The Beginning of the End

The evacuation of Amona led 9 percent of respondents to change their vote, mostly to the Likud. This switch is what gave the Likud two more seats than it received in the previous poll.

Great Letter, Dov

Dov Weinstein had a great letter in today's NYTimes:

In "Hamas at the Helm" (editorial, Feb. 2), you argue that Israel should relinquish the $50 million a month in tax receipts it collects for the Palestinian Authority because that money belongs to the Palestinians. But as the Palestinians have chosen to be governed by terrorists who call for the destruction of Israel, this proposition is preposterous.

While Israel has agreed to pass on $54 million in taxes collected on behalf of the Palestinians, the Israeli housing minister was right to say that monthly transfers would stop after Hamas formed a new government (news article, Feb. 6).

Would you suggest that America return to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda the funds it has seized over the past years? After all, the money was theirs.

Social Theory: How You Become a Right-wing Extremist

Bettina Engels & Florian Storm of Germany's Free University of Berlin published an article: How to become a right-wing extremist

Thye seek to use political socialization research to explain right-wing extremist dispositions, attitudes and behaviour.

I've selected an excerpt to illustrate the use (or not) of such theorizing:-

Possibly not only the experiences one make during childhood in the relationship with the reference-person are crucial but the way one handle it in the course of one's personal development. Hopf und Hopf refer to the thesis of attachment-research which says that family-internal relationship experiences and its working-up and representation in the age of adolescence are relevant for the development of political orientations and behaviour. Attachment-research analyses how the child's attachment to its reference-person is represented in the age of adolescence. Uncertain attachment experiences can cause different psychic "internal working models". Conflicts exist in every parent-child-relationship. But children with uncertain attachment experiences manage worse to overcome and work-up conflicts... As a consequence, the aggression of the authoritarian structured who usually has little self-confidence is directed towards the weaker (because he is intent on never be the overcome himself). Existing right-wing extremist structures, scenes and cliques offer ways to transform the repressed aggression in aggressive activity against foreigners...Repressed wishes and longings can be projected in the same way as repressed aggression: One envy the foreigner what one wishes unaware for oneself and reproaches him with it. Envy and reproach lay close to another.

If any of the above fits your experience, don't let me know.

So, Amona is not Ezmarelda

This just over the wires:

The Immigration Police transferred an officer who took part in a search of the home of the Dominican Republic during which, according to the ambassador's wife, she was hit by officers.

Police said the claim was being investigated.

You mean without even finishing the investigation he's suspended and transferred away?

Gee, what's with Amona?

Benny Morris' Comment on the McGreal Apartheid Story

The UK Guardian published a two-part slaughter piece on Israel under the "apartheid" theme. Part One. Part Two.

Here's Benny Morris' comment, among others:-

Ultimately, this conflict is about Israel's - not the Arabs' or even the Palestinian Arabs' - survival.

Israel's one-million strong Arab minority has, over the past years, consistently and vociferusly rejected all proposals that they, along with their lands and houses, be placed under Palestinian Authority rule. They overwhelmingly prefer Israeli democracy and cultural norms (and standards of living) to anything their Palestinian brothers or the Arab world have to offer.

Curious, isn't it?

Yes, Benny Morris, the founder of the New Zionism history trend.

They Hate So Much that They Can't Think

One Ted Conover has a piece in The Atlantic Monthly. It deals with checkpoint life for Israeli soldiers which, he writes, is dull, alienating, and stress-inducing. For the Palestinians it is frustrating, humiliating, and anger-provoking. Yet it’s the human face of the occupation — and as close as some Israelis and Palestinians will ever come.


And here are the opening paragraphs:-

We in the modern world are used to waiting, and the first time one passes through a checkpoint in the West Bank, one thinks, Oh, this looks kind of familiar. This won’t be so bad. I will just need to stand in line a bit.

But then one sees that rather than a simple queue, this is more like a funnel—wide enough where it begins for thirty people to stand side by side, at the end of an open-air shed with a corrugated tin roof, but narrowing a few yards farther on, where everyone is pushing toward two tall turnstiles. One afternoon in the fall of 2004 (but it could as well have been today) it took forty minutes to reach the front at Qalandia, the checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem. It was an exercise in gradual compression: I went from having some choice of movement (I’ll head for the left turnstile) to having none at all, as my footsteps were foreshortened by the people in front, my arms were pinioned by the people beside me, and my shoulders were bumped by the people behind.

Doesn't he realize that these people do not suffer the fear of being blown up by a Jewish suicide bomber unlike kids waiting on line outside a nighclub or a supermarket or a restaurant?

Heard of the Olmert Bunny?

Keeps giving up and giving up.

Ann Coulter on the Cartoon Follies

Ann Coulter does have a way with words:

...three cartoons made political points.

One showed Muhammad turning away suicide bombers from the gates of heaven, saying "Stop, stop — we ran out of virgins!" — which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. Another was a cartoon of Muhammad with horns, which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. The third showed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb, which I believe was an expression of post-industrial ennui in a secular — oops, no, wait: It was more of a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence.

In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence.

Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.

The little darlings brandish placards with typical Religion of Peace slogans, such as: "Behead Those Who Insult Islam," "Europe, you will pay, extermination is on the way" and "Butcher those who mock Islam." They warn Europe of their own impending 9/11 with signs that say: "Europe: Your 9/11 will come" — which is ironic, because they almost had me convinced the Jews were behind the 9/11 attack.

(thanks to CK)

They're after Nadia again

Nadia Matar to be Charged With Insulting a Public Servant

Nadia Matar, co-chairwoman of the grassroots Women in Green organization, is to be charged with "insulting a public servant". The charges, filed today, stem from a letter she wrote to Yonatan Bassi, head of the Disengagement Authority, in which she likened him to a member of the Judenrat.

Matar told Arutz Sheva today that she has not yet received any official charges. At the same time, Matar said that if the issue is brought to court, then she will prove that others who used similar expressions were not charged. Matar says that the state prosecution is operating under a politically based double standard.

"Tommy Lapid said to Shimon Peres in 1995, two weeks before the Rabin murder, 'Yours is a Judenrat government,'" Matar noted. "The charges are more appropriate to the month of Adar, but I will use the forum in order to charge the expulsion criminals."

I just can't figure out if the lawyers in the state prosecution office are evil, dumb or what.

Moshe Negbi, the leftist legal commentator, has for years been campaigning against this law which is unique in that there is no true definition for the term "insult".

Moreover, just what is the free speech campaign against the Muslims and the caricatures all about in comparison to this. Muhammed can wear a bomb turban but Bassi can't be compared to a Judenrat official?

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people

IsraelNN.com reports:

Arabs Attack International Observer Mission in Hebron

Several hundred Arabs attacked the International Observer Mission building in Hebron with rocks and bottles on Wednesday morning while workers were still inside.

According to Gunhild Forselv, spokesperson for the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, the demonstrators also tried to set the structure ablaze. She said more than 50 workers are based in the Mission building.

TIPH have not quite endeared themselves to Hebron's Jewish community.

But, as they say, what goes around, comes around.

How Fictionalized does a work of Fiction have to be?

Found this here

Maybe this is humourous satire?


SOUTH OF JERICHO
Israeli Author—Jonathan “Ziki” Scharf—
Based on a true story

Ziki Barak hunts terrorists for a living—unless Mossad has him doing other things. He works for Mossad, one of the world’s most feared and respected intelligence agencies.

Nothing and no one will stand in the way of his loyalty. No one, except:

1. The mesmerizing Gavriella Ramon, an American operative who captures Ziki’s heart. Unbeknownst to him, she sympathizes with the terrorists' causes. She betrays him when she informs PLO’s Black September of an oncoming Israeli raid.

2. A continuous affair with Ziki has its effect on Gavriella—she ‘sees the light’. At Mossad’s directive she joins PLO’s El Fatah, is trained by them in a terrorist training camp and then…? Well you have to read the book.

3. General Gheorghy Zhukov, the Russian Bear, learns of “The Samson Option”— Mossad uncovered Russian plans to attack Israel alongside their Arab friends in the upcoming Middle East war.

4.The Israelis respond by testing two nuclear bombs in the Indian Ocean off the South African coast. It is a direct threat aimed at the Russians. Israel has enabled Jericho missiles capable of reaching Moscow. They commence the countdown for —“The Samson Option,” “if we're going to be wiped out by a super power-we are going to take you with us.”

The Middle East brings the U.S. and the Russians to the threshold of nuclear war.
In a Geneva pow-wow, the Americans try to smooth things over with some very upset Russians.

5. Ziki Barak seeks the terrorist masterminds: Sabri Al Banna, his nom de guerre-Abu Nidal, Ali Hassan Salameh and others. He searches the shadows for these relentless killers who manage to stay one step ahead of him.

6. Ziki’s boss has not forgiven Gavriella; he orders Ziki to have her killed. Ziki must choose—does he risk everything to save her or…?

A powerful profile of Israeli Intelligence. A Mossad… hunt in a game with no rules.
Vivid details of Mossad's operations throughout the world.

South of Jericho is a novel based on a true story that pulses with a storyline rooted more in fact than fiction. Pointed details that only someone like Ziki Barak could know fill this book, from the attempted capture of 23 ex-Nazi scientists, planning for the terrorists a germ-biological attack on Israel that could spread throughout the world, to a car chase in the backstreets of Baghdad behind KGB agents involving a Swiss banker and an Arab nuclear plant, to a threatened-to-be-stolen Russian super MiG fighter plane;

The action is unrelenting and unmistakably … real.

Making a Good Point or Two

Ha'Aretz's Amos Harel wrote:

Something creaked this week in the government apparatus. Differences of nuance, if not greater tension, are evident between the bureau of the acting prime minister and that of the defense minister. This is not just Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's position, in favor of a second disengagement in the West Bank in light of the rise of Hamas, a position that was not coordinated in advance with Acting Prime Minister Ehud ("zero mistakes") Olmert. The evacuation by agreement of the market in Hebron and the violent evacuation of the nine houses in Amona were accompanied by short circuits in communication, different versions and mutual criticism among all branches of the administration. Among senior IDF people, there was evidence of a cynical approach that expressed a lack of confidence in the probity of both Olmert's and Mofaz's intentions with respect to the timing of the struggle against the settlers. As far as the General Staff is concerned, Olmert is still not Sharon and has yet to win the extent of trust and admiration that his predecessor enjoyed before his illness.

In Amona, the administration's exaggerated fervor came together with failures in planning and implementation on the part of the military and the police. The result, with the settlers' enthusiastic contributions, was a far bloodier incident than anything experienced in the disengagement. The clash had barely ended when the finger-pointing began: The Prime Minister's Bureau "took no delight," as was leaked, in the scenes and the planning, and the army believed that the police made excessive use of their truncheons.

The commanders of the operation clung to the pictures of the youngsters' violence (iron bars, cinder blocks, barrages of rocks) to justify the police response. But this does not explain why they did not go to the trouble of bringing the General Staff negotiating team to Amona and making use of the experience of officers like Brigadier General Gershon Hacohen, who quietly and successfully evacuated Gush Katif. Overall, the General Staff disappeared from the picture (where were all the senior officers from General Staff headquarters at the Kirya in Tel Aviv who had rushed to get their pictures taken next to the fortress in Sa-Nur?) while the Shai (Samaria and Judea) District was again revealed as the weakest of the police districts when it comes to putting forces into operation.

and

At Amona, the police used intentional, and in part even malevolent, violence. Perhaps there was revenge here for harassment in the past, during the disengagement and in the recent events in Hebron, and perhaps violent release after hours of forced waiting under barrages of curses and stones from the settlers. At the end of the operation, while the dazed teenagers from the right were comparing the bruises they had received, a smiling group from the police special forces posed for a souvenir picture against the background of the demolished houses. The settlers were infuriated. But the police displayed total indifference. When two religious girls insulted a border policeman, he responded with an obscene gesture, which the girls did not even understand.

It is possible to see the reciprocal hatred as a result of prior clashes, but it seems that there is another explanation: The ethnic and status gap between the evacuators and the evacuees in Amona was deeper and more obvious than in Gush Katif. At the disengagement in Gush Katif many of the police felt sorrow and pity for the settlers, who were uprooted from homes they had nurtured for years. Many of the inhabitants of the Gush came from families that had immigrated to Israel from North Africa and had previously lived in the peripheral towns and moshavim of the western Negev. Among the religious settlers in the West Bank (and at Amona hardly any secular demonstrators were visible) there was a definite Ashkenazi majority. The police - Druze, Bedouin, immigrants from Russia and people of Moroccan origin - did not have a drop of sympathy for them, in addition to the fact that they perceived the entire confrontation as duplicitous and inflated. After all, it was a matter of demolishing empty houses, in which no one lived.

So, This is Mofaz's Idea of Security?

No Israeli control at Rafah crossing

The deal Israel reached with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt on operating the Rafah border terminal does not allow Israel to prevent the entrance of terrorists from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, a Haaretz investigation has revealed.

Senior security officials confirmed that, despite the security establishment's official statements to the contrary, Israel has virtually no say in who crosses the border.

Read on.

Shlomo Blass' Piece on His Father

Shlomo Blass is a journalist and here he describes his father's injury, the police behavior at Amona and his thoughts.

An excerpt:-

Just as our conversation ended, a 16-year-old, seeing my press card, approached me.

"I just want to let you know that I volunteer in the civil guard, but I am leaving my volunteer card here on this hill."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"I saw a policeman purposely club a 12-year-old boy on his kneecap. I understand that some force is required to get control of the situation here. But that was just plain, gratuitous cruelty. He's a little squirt. The policeman could have easily just picked him up and carried him away."

I finally found my father walking out of one of the tents, where he had been examined by a doctor. He held an ice pack to a bump on his head the size of my fist. He described how he and a group of adults had been standing outside one of the houses when the policemen rammed into them without warning.

A European journalist, standing nearby, overheard our conversation and could not help but ask my father, "They beat you on the head - an adult with a white beard and all?"

Irit & I (and Yaron London)

I recently published an article on Israel on the verge of a 'tipping point'.

Irit Linor's article (see excerpt below) gives another indication why I think that what I refer to as fortitude is collapsing on all fronts: political, security, moral, cultural and Zionist.

Two years ago the Israel Film Foundation refused funding for Paradise Now. Here's why

Two years ago, the creators of Paradise Now asked the Israel Film Foundation for public funding to help produce the film. They were turned down thanks to a number of reviewers—including myself—who were taken aback by its moral character.

Go read the rest of her piece.

And while you're at it, read Yaron London's op-ed, too.

Excerpt:-

By failing to show the bloody images, dismissed by the reviewers as artistic sensitivity, is a clear political message: people live on only one side of the fence, while on the other side there are only faceless entities that can be slaughtered with no second thoughts.

I prefer decent movies, which identify evil and call it by its name, even if my opinion differs from the artist regarding who the bad guys really are.

It's all a Kibbutz Intutiton

Found this at Ynet:

When should we stop showering together?

The maximum age for showering together, for changing clothes in front of the kids, etc. depends on what the parents sense, and here also it’s important to behave naturally. Nudity isn’t necessarily sexual; it can be regarded as natural.

Obviously up to a certain age for the kids, an age that the parents determine according to their intuition.

The writer, Dov Even Zahav, is a psychologist and senior lecturer at the Center for Parenthood & Family, School of Advanced Studies, Seminar Hakibbutzim College

Now, I'm no psychologist but two things seem wrong with this.

First, you mean they still shower together on kibbutzim? I thought that was just a myth and even if true, was stopped as soon as Raful Eitan suggested we all shower together to save water.

Secondly, you'd think a "senior lecturer" could come up with something better and a bit more precise than "intuition".

I mean, after all, it's my intutition that yielding up territory will only whet the Arab appetite and that disengagement, specifically, will be perceived as a reward for terror. So, I'm right?

The Iranians think they're cute

The Iranians have come up with a great new idea:-

Iran has reacted to Denmark’s publishing of the cartoons in turn. The largest state newspaper Hamshahiri which holds conservative views has announced that it will hold a competition to find the most amusing cartoon based on the theme of the Holocaust.

The rules of the competition will be published in a number of newspapers which are printed on Tuesday. The graphic editor of the Iranian newspaper Farid Mortazawi said, “Western newspapers which printed these sacrilegious cartoons defend themselves by speaking of freedom of speech and self-expression. Therefore we shall see if they really follow these principles and will print the cartoons about the Holocaust.”

Well, first of all, these type of cartoons drawn by Christians have been around for years. Anybody see a Jew burn a flag or invade an embassy or shout his head off like a maniac?

Secondly, actually there are laws that are supposed to prevent such caricatures. One goes to court. Muslims don't go to court. They pronounce their own death sentences.

Thirdly, Arabs & Muslims have been publishing antisemitic cartoons for years (and see here too.

Another Pic of Nedavya

To see the work of the photographer, Koby Harati, click here for 11 pages of 192 photographs uploaded at Jugend Gallery and the beginnings of a new site of his own.

My Son Nedavya A Year Ago in Rhode Island

Fishing on a lake during the summer when he worked at Camp JORI.

Ehud Olmert Speaks

From the remarks of Acting PM Ehud Olmert to the 6th Annual Israel-Europe Conference - Feb 6, 2006:-

Finally, I wish to say something about the internal atmosphere here. We are in the midst of a difficult disagreement. It did not begin today. It has continued for quite some time. It is difficult and painful, and I feel this disagreement cannot be obfuscated only by spouting slogans. However, we can speak honestly, with complete openness and seriously, with a feeling of responsibility for all sectors of the public about this disagreement, and about the measures we adopt in order to be able to live with it.

I intend to speak with everyone. I am not afraid to talk to those who fight us. And of course I will speak to those who are an inseparable part of Israeli society. They are a loved part, they are a part which made a great contribution, even if sometimes I disagree with them, even if I am of the opinion that they are mistaken, and I am concerned that they are misleading, and I am convinced that they may, heaven forbid, lead us to a path which has no exit. I will speak with everyone. I will conduct a dialogue with everyone. I will sit with everyone and try to find a way to solve our internal problems, not out of hate, not out of annoyance, not out of a desire to hurt, but out of patience - endless patience - because we have no other way.

If there is something I have learned from our collective experience over many years, it is that, despite our differences, if we can eventually preserve the basis which unites us all, there is no limit to our power, there is no limit to our possibilities, there is no limit to our chances. And I will never waive our duty to maintain the law, carry out the decisions of the courts and protect Israeli democracy at any cost, and also the need to embrace all sectors of Israeli society, and speak with them in order that we may all march forward.

Kadima - The Party for those with an "Open" Mind

After the Muhammed caricatures, this shouldn't be that outlandish.

The Horse Policeman

Here's the original Yedioth article about the "horse policeman".



P.S. On the day of the Amona police riot, reports filtered out that a policeman had been stabbed. Everybody felt awful that such a thing could happen. Well, it may turn out that he who says "police are animals" isn't far off the mark?

Diskin Speaks Out

Selections:

The disengagement from Gaza and the West Bank was an act of uprooting, despite the insistence of referring to the withdrawal as an "evacuation," Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin said in an unusually candid talk with settler teens.

"The disengagement is first and foremost an act of uprooting," DIskin told students at a pre-military high-school. The comments were aired on Channel 10 Monday evening.

"They're scared to use this term, uprooting, and they're calling it evacuation," he said.

- - - -

Turning his attention to the national rift in the wake of the pullout, Diskin said the government is not handling it properly.

"The political system is already in an election campaign…as a result, the handling of this rift in my view is not good," Diskin added. "And the mishandling of such a deep rift has implications I'm forced to deal with."

- - - -

"The Jewish division will not be closed down, because there's a problem," he said. "If there wasn't a problem, there wouldn't be a Jewish division. It's really simple. The first place I'd be glad to close down if there was no problem is the Jewish division."

He added: "There are (Jewish) people who create terror, and there are people who harm people, and property. You know this just as I do. Some of you could condone this, some of you may agree, and some not. It's irrelevant."

"I suggest, even if this annoys you, to think about this well," Diskin told the religious students. "Understand that a Jew who commits terror is in the end a cancer for the nation much more so than an Arab who commits terror, that's how I see it."

- - - -

Addressing Hamas' ascension to power in the Palestinian Authority, Diskin said: "I think the minute Fatah recovers, if it recovers, which is another question, Hamas will slowly shrink to its natural size. In my opinion, if this happens, Hamas will stand at around 20 percent."

- - - -

Diskin also said: "The political echelon can do what it wants, from a security perspective I am opposed to handing over territories to the Palestinians, including territories under their control unless we know there are officials there who will take control and commit themselves to upholding the law in that area. If there are no such officials, then I am against handing over territories to Palestinian control."

P.S. His point about Hamas I'm willing to be will be way off the mark.

Good News in NYTimes

Finally, some good news about Israel in the NYTimes:-

Separately, the Israeli organization Peace Now said Monday that the number of Israeli settlers living in occupied territory in the West Bank — not including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed — increased in 2005 by about 7,000 to 250,000 settlers, even after the pullout of some 9,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank last summer.

The settler population is increasing at 5.5 percent a year, Peace Now said, compared with a 1.8 percent for the overall Israeli population.

Looking for Creative Protest Ideas?

I find this item here.

Mon Feb 6, 6:29 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - Hundreds of fans of German club Borussia Dortmund waved huge inflatable penises at local rivals Schalke 04 on Saturday above an abusive message for their hosts.

The pink blow-ups and a huge banner in Dortmund's yellow and black suggesting Schalke fans should procreate with themselves added a splash of colour to the dour 0-0 draw between the two Bundesliga sides.

Now, someone might think I'm hitting below the belt but that's exactly what some of our policemen did at Amona.

Think about it.

Israel - 2006 - Police Behavior

The Yesha leaders brought reports from teenaged girls who said that Yassam (special unit) and Magav (Border Guard) policemen had called them prostitutes, threatened to rape them, and touched their private parts.

A 52-year old woman said that when a Yassam policeman took her out of a house in Amona, he placed his hand under her sweater. She slapped him in the face. Other policemen then approached her in a threatening manner, but then left her.

Minister Ezra said that Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi had ordered a review of the incident, as is customary, and that the findings are to be ready within ten days.

At 4:30 PM this afternoon, a march is to be held in downtown Jerusalem, protesting the police violence. Organizers fear that the police at the march will attempt to arrest youths they suspect of throwing rocks at Amona.

One youth who participated in the Amona protests, and who prefers to remain anonymous, explained his view of the events:
"We had no intentions of throwing rocks, but when we saw the way the police charged in with their horses and clubs at the people standing around, we just felt that there was no choice; we had to do something. So we took the rocks that we had brought up to hold down the barbed wire and threw some of them."

Fifteen-year-old Avishag S. of Haifa, who says she is still in pain and now has developed fever, told the following story:
"I was in house #6, and the Yassamnikim came in through the window. One of them pulled me up by the ear, while beating me with his club in my stomach. He didn't just hit me; he turned the stick around almost inside me - and then another one kicked me in the back, and then sort of threw me out the window, giving me glass splinters in my leg. That's what they did with all the girls there...

"After a few seconds, my stomach began to hurt me terribly, and I just started screaming in pain, all doubled over. An army medic told me I had better go to the clinic, but a Yassamnik didn't let me pass. Only when they brought me a stretcher - because I couldn't walk - did he let me go through.

"In the clinic, they didn't know exactly what to do, but they saw that there was a real fear of damage to an internal organ - so they called an ambulance. But throughout this time they couldn't give me any painkiller, and so I was yelling in pain the whole time. Once I was in the hospital (Shaarei Tzedek), they gave me an ultrasound and infusions and everything. That's when they finally told me that I was just a millimeter away from having an internal organ damaged, which would have meant a dangerous operation. I was also very worried that my uterus was affected, but in the end, they reassured me on that as well."

"I hope that next time, the whole nation will be there - not to attack, but to defend."

It has now been learned that even Magen David Adom (MDA) medical teams were not immune to police attacks. Shalom Galil of Beit El, an experienced medic, told this story:
"I was outside house #6, and a Border Guard officer called out, 'Medic! Medic!' So I came and he said that someone was hurt inside the house. I climbed in through the window [the doors were sealed - ed.], and I looked for the patient. Two Border Guard policemen were there and said, 'No one is here, get out,' and they started beating me. At the same time, they pushed me towards the salon, where two other policemen were blocking the way. I screamed that I was an MDA medic, and of course they saw my orange MDA vest, but they didn't care and kept on beating me, until I was finally able to get out."

Another medic, Mordechai Ben-Aros of Kokhav Yaakov, had a similar story:
"Most of the MDA personnel were in the first-aid tent, treating the wounded, while we were three paramedics outside in the 'field.' We also had stretcher-carriers and other volunteers, but we were treating the wounded...

"At one point, we came to a house, and the commander asked me to go in and deal with those who were hurt. When I went in, with my bright orange vest, there were policemen who recognized me from previous houses - but one of them pushed me into a corner and started screaming at me and did not allow me to go up to the roof and check who was hurt. At the same time, a Yassamnik started hitting me without stopping. I tried to say that the officer had told me to come in, and they said they didn't care and kept on beating me... Afterwards, at another house, they told me to go in to check the wounded, but we chose not to."

In another case, an army officer whose name is known did not allow an ambulance to go from Ofrah to Amona.

Another paramedic said that Magen David Adom management instructed its volunteers not to publicize the stories.

It was also learned that a woman ambulance driver was taking a wounded policeman to the hospital, and he cursed her and abused her the whole route. A complaint has been filed with the police.

Roni Daniel, Channel Two's veteran anchorman, reported from the scene:
"The policemen here are raining blows down on the settlers one after the other. The blows are unnecessary, they are hitting just to vent their rage, there is no need for it. The police behavior on the roofs has to be investigated. The violence here is unnecessary."

Here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

I could agree with that

Few think of themselves as being in favour of genocide, and many would like to see Israelis dismantle their settlements on the West Bank, but no one is going to demolish their own house and give the land back to the indigenous people. Zionists remember this, and so did Hitler.

Malcolm Bull

It's In the Koran

The new satire.

NYTimes Prints Lies

I found this in today's NYTimes Letters section:

Over the last 12 months, radical Palestinian groups have largely observed a unilateral cease-fire, in spite of a large number of assassinations and acts of random violence perpetrated by Israeli forces.

Christian Haesemeyer
Champaign, Ill.

So, being who (whom?) I am, I sent the following:-

Christian Haesemeyer asserts, in error, that "over the last 12 months, radical Palestinian groups have largely observed a unilateral cease-fire" (letters, Feb. 6). Largely?

While the death by stabbing of a woman in a taxi the day before his letter was published was unknown to Haesemeyer, the statistics since January 2005 are readily available. Fifty civilians, Jews, Arabs and foreign workers, were killed in 23 separate successful incidents of Palestinian terror in Israel and the disputed territories.

These occurred as a result of four suicide bombings, Kassam shellings, drive-by shootings, stabbings and other violent means. Two soldiers were additionally killed in terros attacks.

Media reports indicate almost daily attempts by other terrorists than have been halted that have included young children transporting explosives, tunnel-digging, construction of bomb laboratories, premature failed suicide bombings and much more.

Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi Replies

Having received a posting via Naomi Ragen (see below), I wrote to my friend Sheikh Palazzi of Rome for his comments.

After three weeks, he has replied.

First is an excerpt from the posting about the book and then Sheikh Palazzi's remarks.

(a)
The book that lifts the veil on the Islamic holy war is entitled "The Legacy of Jihad," and is edited by Andrew G.Bostom.

The book is essentially made up of documents, many of which have been translated for the first time from Arabic or Farsi, or have been reproduced from books of oriental
studies that would be difficult for the general public to find.

The documents range from Mohammed in the seventh century, to the twentieth century. And they include the classic texts on the topic of jihad by Muslim theologians and jurists, accounts of war from ancient and modern witnesses, and analyses of jihad by scholars of varying outlooks.

=================================================

(b)

Dear Mr. Medad,

Please, excuse my delay in answering your message, depending of the hundreds of emails which where accumulated in my mailbox during my absence from Rome.

I read the book review in its original Italian version. I know Sandro Magister personally and consider him one of the best journalists we have in Italy, and probably the most skilled journalist in everything pertaining to the Vatican.

I must says that books pertaining to Islam published in the West can be distinguished in three basic categories:

1) Sympathetic literature, where the author only voices his admiration for Islam and minimizes or ignores every possible problematic aspect of the history of Islam or of the contemporary Islamic world; examples of this are the books of Karen Armstrong, John Esposito, etc.

2) Antithetic literature, which is often a reaction to sympathetic one. Everything (or almost everything in Islam is bad) and the appearance and existence of Islam has always be a calamity for the world. It includes the books of Bat Ye'or, Oriana Fallaci and some Christian missionaries.

3) Problematic literature. The author studies the subject of Islam with the same objectivity a scientist should study his subject. He tries to put personal feelings apart and to analyze facts, without ignoring the contribute of Islam to the human civilization and without minimizing the problematic aspects which characterize the history of Islam. These aspects are on the contrary rationally investigated, and possible solutions are also offered. The best example of this are the books of Bernard Lewis and Bernard Henry-Levy.

I think that the notion of "peaceful" by itself is misguiding. A human being can be peaceful in nature, but become violent when his dear ones are threatened, or his basic rights violated. As opposite to "peaceful", "non-violent" as a specific meaning. It includes the Gandhi-like attitude of the one who does not react with violence in any case, not even when others resort to violence against him. Now, asking whether Islam is non-violent or not makes sense, and the answer is clear. It is not, since it permit to counter violence with other violence, i.e. to resort to self defense. As for asking whether Islam is "peaceful" or not, I think it is as meaningless as asking whether Christianity is peaceful or not. There were periods in which Christians lived in peace, and periods in which Muslims lived in peace, and there where period in which both of the were involved in long wars.

For the rest, the arguments to which the author resorts are childish: Islam spread through war? Christianity also spread to war, Buddhism spread in India to war, and Hinduism prevailed again because of anti-Buddhist wars. Jews conquered the Holy Land by waging war against the Seven Nations, are regained their independence by waging wars against the Seleucids. Except for those religions and ideologies which abide by theoretical non-violence, claiming that a certain religion is "peaceful" is a non-sense, and claiming that is not is another non-sense. That is the reason why in most of cases both sympathetic and antithetic literature do not go beyond the level of political or ideological propaganda. Bostom for instance mention the regions which were conquered by Islam in war, but refrain from mentioning other regions in which Islam spread without any war (Somalia, Eritrea, and the whole of South -East Asia). In the same way, Christianity spread to some areas through war, and to some others without any war. He claims that military jihad is a permanent religious obligation in the Islamic legal system, but is not able to cite even a single legal Islamic source about this supposed permanent obligation.

Consequently, I am inclined to suppose that sympathetic and antithetic literature balance each other, and none of them reaches the level of scientificity and contributes either to increase knowledge o to offer solutions for the problems of today's world.

Regards,


Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi

On Offending

My brother-in-law sent me this which I checked around and found here and then confirmed here:


Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais' 1784 stage comedy Marriage of Figaro (adapted by Mozart for the great opera), from the famous Freedom of Speech monologue in Act V, Scene 3:

"I cobble together a verse comedy about the customs of the harem, assuming that, as a Spanish writer, I can say what I like about Mohammed without drawing hostile fire. Next thing, some envoy from God knows where turns up and complains that in my play I have offended the Ottoman empire, Persia, a large slice of the Indian peninsula, the whole of Egypt, and the kingdoms of Barca {Ethiopia}, Tripoli, Tunisi, Algeria, and Morocco. And so my play sinks without trace, all to placate a bunch of Muslim princes, not one of whom, as far as I know, can read but who beat the living daylights out of us and say we are 'Christian dogs.' Since they can't stop a man thinking, they take it out on his hide instead..."

Headline Humdinging

The BBC has this headline on its web site:

Woman dies in Israel knife attack

A woman? Any old woman?

And who wielded the knife? Any old person?

Here's the first paragraph:

A woman has been stabbed to death and at least four other people have been wounded in a knife attack on a minibus in central Israel.

Well, we're still in the dark about identities, no?

Second paragrpah:

Witnesses said the attacker, thought to be a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, got up from his seat and began slashing at anyone within his reach.

Okay, I'm not the staid BBC but I would have written:

Arab kills Jewish Woman, Stabs other Jews

Am I too nationalistic?

Big Boob of the Sunday London Times

Here's another letter of mine to that great esteemed journal:-

Michael Portillo argues in favor of dialoguing with Hamas ("To spread democracy you have to let bad guys win", Feb. 5) and notes that "terrorist organisations do sometimes metamorphose into law-abiding political parties". To justify this, he recalls Menachem Begin, an Israeli prime minister and Nobel peace prize winner, and the Irgun attack on British forces in Jerusalem ’s King David hotel.

The Irgun's tactics while Begin was commander never included non-recognition of Britain's right to exist nor did it engage in a campaign directed solely at civilians. It was not based a a perverse religious fundamentalism. When attacking targets that could have posed a danger for non-combatants, warnings were always distributed. Mr. Portillo's comparsion is poorly drawn.

"Stealing" someone else's comment

Found at The Jerusalem's Post's talkback column:

Talkback comment following item on tragic death of parachutist:

1. IDF Parachute accident
K Price Ph.D. - USA
02/02/2006 23:59

My condolences to the family and to the IDF. As for the government -- given that more parachutists are killed in training accidents yearly than soldiers were killed in Lebanon during the "occupation," it is obvious that Israel must withdraw from parachute training, thus saving the lives of countless soldiers. Since Israel no longer uses its army to defend itself, why does it continue to train young men for combat? Couldn't you just drop Beilin, Hirschfeld, Pundak and Peres behind enemy lines and let them talk the Arabs to death?

New Word

Sheeple

People unable to think for themselves. Followers. Lemmings.
Those with no cognitive ablilities of their own.

It's Tough Advocating for Israel

First, thanks to all of you who took the time and effort to vote for this blog in the two rounds of the JIB.

And now, to the problems of advocating for Israel.

Read this:

IDF Drops Fliers in Gaza

The IDF during the night dropped fliers into northern Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled Gaza in the hope of persuading residents to distance terrorists from the area, now used to launch rocket attacks into southern re-1967 Green Line Israel.

The fliers explain terrorist activities are turning the area into a “war zone” which places them in life-threatening danger.

That took place yesterday.

Now read this:

IDF Distribute Fliers to PA Residents in Gaza

The IDF yesterday dropped fliers in PA autonomous areas of Gaza calling on residents to distance themselves from terrorist attacks and not to cooperate with terror organizations.

That flier fly-by took place on Apr 25, 2004.

See what I mean.

We keep dropping fliers and they keep dropping Kassams.

And yes, Israel does occasionally kill Pals. from helicopter gunships but that's only after they injure one of us. This is not a cogent nor logical security policy.

Quotable Qutotations

He had an instinctive dislike of Jews and colored people. He once confessed to me that he would rather not know that a friend had a Jewish ancestry, and like many of his generation, he was strongly pro-Zionist, not only for historical reasons and admiration for Chaim Weizmann but because he hoped that Israel would attract as many Jews as possible to live there.

Nigel Nicholson describing his father's Harold opinion

=================================================

The strength of the Jews lies in the despair of those who know they
will not be left in peace.

Anthony Powell, A Writer's Notebook, postuhumously published 2001


(found while skimming the internet)

Famous words

Remember Raful's cockroaches remark?

Well, in England, one Mark Collett, of the British National Front
group called non-white/Asian asylum-seekers: "Cockroaches" and
in a trial, no verdict was reached and so, he was deemed innocent.

Gee, this is a difficult one for liberals.

Here's the catalogue entry

Wanna buy a baton so you can beat up "settlers" too?

Here's the catalogue entry.

The Policeman who was stabbed

In the afternoon of last Wednesday, news reports filtered out that a policeman had been stabbed by a demonstrator at Amona. The policeman was injured by someone who picked up a sharp object from one of the blockades.

Friday's Yedioth Ahronot has a picture of the policeman and a story about him.

First thing is that his name is Arbel.

Second thing is that "he" is a horse.

Now, I am not suggesting that animals serving security forces are to be treated in a violent way just because they are animals and that human beings should not.

But, on the other hand, the police should not mislead the public and publicize that a policeman ("shoter" שוטר in the original Hebrew announcement) was stabbed when it was a police horse.

If so, so wisecracker might say that policemen are animals and that wouldn't be nice, right?

Effie Eitam

and this:



or try this.

Asked about his headwound today, he replied:-

You can't crack the skull of a Golani trooper that easily

Let's Be Silly for a Minute

Some people can be silly.

'That 70'S Show' star Ashton Kutcher was reportedly furious when he was asked to remove his Kabbalah red-string bracelet during the filming of his latest movie 'The Guardian.' Kutcher has worn the mystical adornment for several years since being introduced to the religous offshoot of Judaism by his now-wife Demi Moore, according to a published report.

Kutcher eventually relented only after film bosses told him that it would have to be digitally edited from the film if he did not cooperate.

The 27-year-old actor says, "I wasn't happy at first but to remove it digitally is beyond silly."

(and that was my 501st posting)

Truth is stranger than fiction

MK Hendel reported that he had received documentation that that Eyal Arad, the
PR advisor to the Prime Minister’s office, had devised a campaign strategy for
Olmert which would promote the notion that residents of Judea and Samaria were
“more hated than Hamas”, which led Olmert to describe the Jews in Amona as the
Jewish Hamas, following Wednesday’s confrontation.

MK Hendel told the media that Arad had advised Olmert to foster an image as
a “leader who stands firm in the face of the settlers”, and that this would
buttress support for him in the polls, instead of forcing Olmert to address the
issue of the Hamas electoral victory and the continuing shower of unanswered
missile attacks from Gaza.

From Lord of the Ring?

More Pics

Right to Left:

Professor Aryeh Eldad, MK, former Chief Physician, IDF
Brig. General (ret.) Effir Eitam, MK
Dr. Matti Ehrlichman

Amona

Another Pic from Amona

Police Brutality

I previously wrote about Tasers in the hands of police.

Maybe the Israeli police would like to adopt this new weapon?

Issue Date: January 30-February 5, 2006

New weapon could mean the end of collateral damage

The U.S. military has been developing a gunship that could literally obliterate enemy ground targets with a laser beam.

The laser could have tremendous repercussions on the battlefield, particularly in urban warfare in such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq. "It's the kind of tool that could bring about victory within minutes," an official said.

Officials envision the laser being able to destroy or damage targets in an urban area with virtually no collateral damage. The range of ATL was expected to be 10 miles.

Is Isi Right?

For those who are interested in the World Jewish Congress financial overview conducted by the Office of New York's Attorney-General, read on.

Amona Pictures

Pictures from Amona yesterday.

Here.

NYTimes Bald-faced Lie

Did you know that if Israel is forced to retaliate against the Hamas, then :-

Israel will retaliate — as forcefully as it did when it laid waste to Nablus and other Palestinian cities after the intifada

Did you know that?

If you didn't, well, that's what the New York Times claims Israel did in its lead editorial today.

Here, read it.

I responded by writing this letter:-

Your editorial ("Hamas at the helm", Feb. 2) asserts that Israel "laid waste to Nablus and other Palestinian cities after the intifada". This is in error and a grievous one.

If the reference is to Jenin, the myth of destruction and massacre has been unmasked as pure propaganda long ago. No Arab city, twon or village has been laid waste, a phrase that recalls what the Soviet army did to Berlin or what the United States did to Tokoyo. There is no factual justification for making such a claim.

If you would also like to write, here's the address: letters@nytimes.com.