About half a year ago, when the rate of Qassams flying daily into the western Negev from Gaza picked up at an alarming speed, the IDF censor sat down and printed us up a new list of dos and don't. Do: Report Qassam. Don't: Report where Qassam lands. Everything we write is supposed to go through the censor, and for good reason - militants are able to look at a news web site and use the information to correct their errors.
I see the logic in this kind of censorship and fear the consequences of not following it - not as a journalist who could be tried, but as a civilian in a country at war. I don't want Hezbollah or Hamas learning from my writing how to better aim their rockets.
The counter issue of maintaining civil rights in times of crisis, however, raises the ever-present question: does a military censorship limit the newspaper's freedom of the press and citizens' right to freedom of information? On a practical level, it is a dichotomy never to be resolved. Security trumps freedom. With our future a gloomy trend of terror and security, it is necessary to create a space where personal freedom, our raison d'etre, is our reality. The tricky part is that news itself - any writing or expression for that matter - is a creator of reality.
What kind of reality do we want to create?
The Associated Press writes,
Here's news you may never hear about Israel's war against Hezbollah: a missile falls into the sea, a strategic military installation is hit, a Cabinet minister plans to visit the front lines.
All such topics are subject to review by Israel's chief military censor who has, in her own words, "extraordinary power" - to shut down papers, block information and throw journalists in jail.
"I can, for example, publish an order that no material can be published. I can close a newspaper or shut down a station. I can do almost anything, and I can put people in jail," Col. Sima Vaknin said Wednesday.
Israel believes that as a small country in a near constant state of conflict, having a say over what information gets out to the world is vital to its security. Critics say the policy is a slippery slope not fit for a democracy.
The range of issues subject to censorship are all related to the same simple goal: Israel's desire to prevent Hezbollah from using the media to help it better aim the rockets it is firing into Israel.
Abiding by the rules of the censor is a condition for receiving permission to operate as a media organization in Israel.
The conditions include; no real-time reports giving the exact locations of missile hits; no reports of missile hits on army bases, strategic targets, or misses into the sea; and no reports telling when citizens are allowed to leave their bunkers for supplies. Reporters are also not permitted to give details about senior Israeli officials going to the north of the country, where the rockets are falling, until the officials are gone, nor are they allowed to report places where there aren't enough shelters or where public defense is weak.
So far in this conflict, about one rocket in 100 fired by Hezbollah has killed an Israeli. The rest usually explode in empty fields, tear concrete from abandoned streets or plunk into the sea. Fired blind, Hezbollah's thousands of mostly short-range, inaccurate munitions simply pose a random peril to Israeli citizens.
For obvious reasons, Israel would like to keep it that way. Live media feedback, the censor says, changes everything.
Report immediately that a missile splashed into the Mediterranean, for example, and any guerrilla with an Internet connection knows to aim left.
Report that an oil refinery in Haifa went up in flames, and he'll surely celebrate and reload. Report that a senior official is going up north, and it will be raining rockets there in no time.
So the logic of censorship goes.
But in an era when mobile phones have cameras and the terrorists' weapons include laptops and video crews, even the chief censor acknowledges that a complete blockade of news is in many cases not possible.
"Not in 2006," she says.
Restrictions on the media are not unique to Israel. The United States military for example, makes journalists embedded with troops in Iraq sign a document agreeing not to report specifics of troop movements and attacks in real time, for reasons similar to Israel's.
Critics say the censorship system is worse than ineffective - it's undemocratic, often counterproductive and a violation of freedom of speech.
"People are entitled to get as much information as they can about what's happening in a conflict," says Rohan Jahasekera, associate editor of the London-based magazine, the Index of Censorship.
"There's a reasonable expectation and a right of people to get full information about the conduct of a war." he says. Israel's censorship rules were not unusual, he adds, but "it's unusual in that they're enforced."
Jahasekera also refuted arguments that reporting missile landings helped Hezbollah, since the rockets the Islamic militants use are "spectacularly inaccurate."
Bob Steele, Nelson Scholar for Journalism Values at the Poynter Institute, a media studies organization, says editors should bear the responsibility for decisions to publish or not.
"These are decisions that the news organizations and journalists should make - with the input of government and military officials," he says. "They should not be decisions that are made by default."
"We should always push back on censorship," Steele adds, even if it's a losing fight.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
every katyusha has an address
Yair Ettinger writes in Haaretz,
On Friday night, during the prayer welcoming the Shabbat, a siren interrupted the prayers in the synagogue of the Sanz Hasidim in Safed. About 20 worshipers - the few members of the congregation who remained for Shabbat - all moved close to the inner wall of the synagogue, as far as possible from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Such sirens have been heard in the city since Thursday, when a resident of the city was killed, and the confused worshipers held a discussion as to whether it was preferable to finish their prayers inside the synagogue or to obey the instructions of the security forces.
"Daddy, the sealed room," said a child pulling on his father's sleeve, prompting a debate that was held in Yiddish laced with Hebrew terms from the security vocabulary: "The security room? Never mind," another person answered, and the prayers were renewed inside the largely empty synagogue. Five minutes later a whistling was heard in the distance. Those of the worshipers with sharp ears and fast reflexes quickly made for the nearby kitchenette, a kind of impromptu security room; others, even before the building trembled from the nearby explosion of a Katyusha rocket, managed to lie down on the floor. In Safed people lie down like that, and not only on the local graves of righteous men.
The Divrei Haim synagogue of the Sanz Hasidim is located in Tarpat Alley (Tarpat is the acronym for 1929, a year infamous for Arab rioting all over Palestine). Overall, Jewish spirituality and the Israeli-Arab conflict are combined in the streets of the old city - "Defenders' Square" with "Messiah Alley," the mikveh (ritual bath) of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria, a leading kabbalist) with the Arab house in which Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) grew up.
In Tarpat Alley a Magen David Adom ambulance was parked on Friday night, outside the synagogue. The motor was running, the red lights were flashing. In front sat two Sanz Hasidim. They wore Shabbat clothes, including the traditionally festive coat made of silk, but they were on call. Both are volunteers for Hatzala (Rescue), an organization whose ultra-Orthodox volunteers, MDA paramedics, have evacuated over 100 victims in the Galilee since Thursday.
While their friends were praying in the synagogue, they sat frozen in the ambulance listening to the intercom, forbidden to open the door or perform any activity not related to saving lives. When the falling of the Katyushas was heard, the ambulance disappeared. Fortunately, one of the rockets fell on Friday night on a synagogue that had not opened because there were too few worshipers.
Barely a soul
Safed and all its neighborhoods is a city that is beaten and in shock, which is worriedly monitoring any sliver of information and every Katyusha landing in Haifa and Tiberias. Its unexpected joining of the "Katyusha club" led to the closure on Friday night of local shops, hotels, banks, postal services and most of the drugstores. There is barely a living soul on the streets. The Safed municipality estimated that 50 percent to 60 percent of the 13,000 inhabitants of the city have abandoned their homes.
"Anyone who remains here is someone with nowhere to go, or someone who can't afford to leave," said Moshe Madar, the municipality treasurer and the head of Safed's emergency headquarters.
Apparently many of the residents of the Canaan neighborhood belong to this category. On Friday afternoon, a Katyusha hit a wretched and peeling housing project on Hashiva Street. Eleven residents were injured, two moderately. On the sidewalk lay a dead Pekinese dog. His owner was injured as well. After the evacuation of the wounded, many residents went out into the street, and the desperate policeman called on them to enter shelters and other protected spaces. Protected spaces? Security rooms? Who has heard of them in the housing projects? "Where should we go?" asked one resident in panic.
On the third floor of the building that was hit the door was opened a crack, and from it Yaffa Ben-Porat peered inside the stairwell. Her husband, Ephraim, was in the other room, and she was beside herself with fear and helplessness. He is a chronically ill and bedridden, and needed care - even under the barrage of Katyushas that in the end hit the building in which they have lived since immigrating to Israel from Morocco in the 1950s
"I have nobody," said the 62-year-old Ben-Porat. My children are in Ashdod, so we're here alone. There is nobody to come and visit us. Please sir, speak to the municipality, speak to someone about taking care of us." A few minutes later an ambulance crew came to evacuate Ben-Porat and his wife to Ziv Hospital until things blow over.
Perhaps few people remained in Safed, but for the most part those who stayed there over the weekend tried to demonstrate high morale. Both religious and secular people spoke of determination and patience, and expressed faith and confidence in the Israel Defense Forces, or in God.
Shlomo Zeid is the owner of the only hotel in the old city that opened its doors on the weekend. Only one room was occupied - by a journalist. Zeid himself is an atheist, frustrated by the fact that Safed is becoming ultra-Orthodox, but on Shabbat morning, when his ultra-Orthodox neighbor came to visit and spoke of faith in the shadow of the Katyushas, they both managed to agree that "every missile has an address." They're not sure why, but this saying gave them confidence.
Memories of 1948
In 1948, legend has it, Safed held out through natural and miraculous means - through natural means, because the Safed old-timers didn't stop reciting Psalms, as is their wont; and miraculously, because the Palmach (the pre-state commando strike force) arrived in time.
Meanwhile, Rabbi Shlomo Makleb, one of the city's old-timers today, says that he and his neighbors are praying. "Imagine if we didn't pray, a Katyusha would land here every second," he said.
Rina Kobi, who lives in the old city, was a newborn during the 1948 War of Independence, but this weekend she pulled out the arsenal of family stories from her memory: how her older brother used to run between the outposts of the Haganah (the pre-state military force) and the Etzel (right-wing militia), and distribute cans of sardines to the Jewish fighters.
"I grew up on those stories about 1948," she smiled. "Who would have believed that missiles would be flying over our heads?"
In the afternoon, with Katyushas rumbling in the background, she sat on a bench in the street chatting with an ultra-Orthodox neighbor. She was calm. "Me?" she said. "I have no fear at all. The children and grandchildren asked me to come stay with them in the center of the country, but why should I leave my house? In 1948 we didn't leave, and I'm not leaving now."
Kiryat Bratslav was full compared to the other ultra-Orthodox neighbors of Safed; almost half the members of the community remained. In the large Bratslav synagogue they decided to try to maintain routine as much as possible. They even celebrated a circumcision there on Shabbat morning; the baby was named Israel. After prayers, they read the haftara from Jeremiah, which includes the verse: "Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land." The rabbi said in his sermon, based on the words of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, that "out of sadness comes happiness."
Some of the worshipers found relief in jokes about Nasrallah, but Nahman Klein, the head of Hatzala in the Galilee, instructed them, in a very severe tone, to make sure their children did not play outside.
Before the beginning of Shabbat we m et Klein in the mikveh. "On a day like this, immersion is a very exalted thing," he said. "We remove from ourselves everything we have undergone during the week. Today and yesterday we evacuated over 100 casualties. I personally immersed myself in the hope that the sanctity of Shabbat will preserve us from all evil. I prayed that God would help us, that we will see better days."
Two hours later the ambulances raced to Moshav Meron, where Yehudit Itzkovich and her grandson, Omer Pesachov, were killed. There were no casualties in Safed.
On Friday night, during the prayer welcoming the Shabbat, a siren interrupted the prayers in the synagogue of the Sanz Hasidim in Safed. About 20 worshipers - the few members of the congregation who remained for Shabbat - all moved close to the inner wall of the synagogue, as far as possible from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Such sirens have been heard in the city since Thursday, when a resident of the city was killed, and the confused worshipers held a discussion as to whether it was preferable to finish their prayers inside the synagogue or to obey the instructions of the security forces.
"Daddy, the sealed room," said a child pulling on his father's sleeve, prompting a debate that was held in Yiddish laced with Hebrew terms from the security vocabulary: "The security room? Never mind," another person answered, and the prayers were renewed inside the largely empty synagogue. Five minutes later a whistling was heard in the distance. Those of the worshipers with sharp ears and fast reflexes quickly made for the nearby kitchenette, a kind of impromptu security room; others, even before the building trembled from the nearby explosion of a Katyusha rocket, managed to lie down on the floor. In Safed people lie down like that, and not only on the local graves of righteous men.
The Divrei Haim synagogue of the Sanz Hasidim is located in Tarpat Alley (Tarpat is the acronym for 1929, a year infamous for Arab rioting all over Palestine). Overall, Jewish spirituality and the Israeli-Arab conflict are combined in the streets of the old city - "Defenders' Square" with "Messiah Alley," the mikveh (ritual bath) of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria, a leading kabbalist) with the Arab house in which Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) grew up.
In Tarpat Alley a Magen David Adom ambulance was parked on Friday night, outside the synagogue. The motor was running, the red lights were flashing. In front sat two Sanz Hasidim. They wore Shabbat clothes, including the traditionally festive coat made of silk, but they were on call. Both are volunteers for Hatzala (Rescue), an organization whose ultra-Orthodox volunteers, MDA paramedics, have evacuated over 100 victims in the Galilee since Thursday.
While their friends were praying in the synagogue, they sat frozen in the ambulance listening to the intercom, forbidden to open the door or perform any activity not related to saving lives. When the falling of the Katyushas was heard, the ambulance disappeared. Fortunately, one of the rockets fell on Friday night on a synagogue that had not opened because there were too few worshipers.
Barely a soul
Safed and all its neighborhoods is a city that is beaten and in shock, which is worriedly monitoring any sliver of information and every Katyusha landing in Haifa and Tiberias. Its unexpected joining of the "Katyusha club" led to the closure on Friday night of local shops, hotels, banks, postal services and most of the drugstores. There is barely a living soul on the streets. The Safed municipality estimated that 50 percent to 60 percent of the 13,000 inhabitants of the city have abandoned their homes.
"Anyone who remains here is someone with nowhere to go, or someone who can't afford to leave," said Moshe Madar, the municipality treasurer and the head of Safed's emergency headquarters.
Apparently many of the residents of the Canaan neighborhood belong to this category. On Friday afternoon, a Katyusha hit a wretched and peeling housing project on Hashiva Street. Eleven residents were injured, two moderately. On the sidewalk lay a dead Pekinese dog. His owner was injured as well. After the evacuation of the wounded, many residents went out into the street, and the desperate policeman called on them to enter shelters and other protected spaces. Protected spaces? Security rooms? Who has heard of them in the housing projects? "Where should we go?" asked one resident in panic.
On the third floor of the building that was hit the door was opened a crack, and from it Yaffa Ben-Porat peered inside the stairwell. Her husband, Ephraim, was in the other room, and she was beside herself with fear and helplessness. He is a chronically ill and bedridden, and needed care - even under the barrage of Katyushas that in the end hit the building in which they have lived since immigrating to Israel from Morocco in the 1950s
"I have nobody," said the 62-year-old Ben-Porat. My children are in Ashdod, so we're here alone. There is nobody to come and visit us. Please sir, speak to the municipality, speak to someone about taking care of us." A few minutes later an ambulance crew came to evacuate Ben-Porat and his wife to Ziv Hospital until things blow over.
Perhaps few people remained in Safed, but for the most part those who stayed there over the weekend tried to demonstrate high morale. Both religious and secular people spoke of determination and patience, and expressed faith and confidence in the Israel Defense Forces, or in God.
Shlomo Zeid is the owner of the only hotel in the old city that opened its doors on the weekend. Only one room was occupied - by a journalist. Zeid himself is an atheist, frustrated by the fact that Safed is becoming ultra-Orthodox, but on Shabbat morning, when his ultra-Orthodox neighbor came to visit and spoke of faith in the shadow of the Katyushas, they both managed to agree that "every missile has an address." They're not sure why, but this saying gave them confidence.
Memories of 1948
In 1948, legend has it, Safed held out through natural and miraculous means - through natural means, because the Safed old-timers didn't stop reciting Psalms, as is their wont; and miraculously, because the Palmach (the pre-state commando strike force) arrived in time.
Meanwhile, Rabbi Shlomo Makleb, one of the city's old-timers today, says that he and his neighbors are praying. "Imagine if we didn't pray, a Katyusha would land here every second," he said.
Rina Kobi, who lives in the old city, was a newborn during the 1948 War of Independence, but this weekend she pulled out the arsenal of family stories from her memory: how her older brother used to run between the outposts of the Haganah (the pre-state military force) and the Etzel (right-wing militia), and distribute cans of sardines to the Jewish fighters.
"I grew up on those stories about 1948," she smiled. "Who would have believed that missiles would be flying over our heads?"
In the afternoon, with Katyushas rumbling in the background, she sat on a bench in the street chatting with an ultra-Orthodox neighbor. She was calm. "Me?" she said. "I have no fear at all. The children and grandchildren asked me to come stay with them in the center of the country, but why should I leave my house? In 1948 we didn't leave, and I'm not leaving now."
Kiryat Bratslav was full compared to the other ultra-Orthodox neighbors of Safed; almost half the members of the community remained. In the large Bratslav synagogue they decided to try to maintain routine as much as possible. They even celebrated a circumcision there on Shabbat morning; the baby was named Israel. After prayers, they read the haftara from Jeremiah, which includes the verse: "Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land." The rabbi said in his sermon, based on the words of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, that "out of sadness comes happiness."
Some of the worshipers found relief in jokes about Nasrallah, but Nahman Klein, the head of Hatzala in the Galilee, instructed them, in a very severe tone, to make sure their children did not play outside.
Before the beginning of Shabbat we m et Klein in the mikveh. "On a day like this, immersion is a very exalted thing," he said. "We remove from ourselves everything we have undergone during the week. Today and yesterday we evacuated over 100 casualties. I personally immersed myself in the hope that the sanctity of Shabbat will preserve us from all evil. I prayed that God would help us, that we will see better days."
Two hours later the ambulances raced to Moshav Meron, where Yehudit Itzkovich and her grandson, Omer Pesachov, were killed. There were no casualties in Safed.
Monday, July 17, 2006
are we scared yet?
In the last week, Hezbollah has managed to remind us what we've forgotten even after five years of intifada: we are under siege. With each rocket strike, Hezbollah defiantly instills within us the fear of retribution, saying, "when a country bombs another population repeatedly from the air, it should expect the same." Hezbollah and Iran, in the name of Palestinians, are proving that they can destroy us just like we can destroy them. It doesn't matter which came first. It only matters who can win the most number of enemy casualties. This is siege. This is war.
Hezbollah - like Hamas - knew that kidnapping Israeli soldiers was a ticket to war. A war detrimental to its civilians and to its infrastructure, but extraordinarily useful to its overall cause. Hezbollah - and Hamas - attack Israel; Israel responds with the only language it knows - war; and suddenly the international community jumps on board to pull the self-conscious bully off the revengeful underdog.
Less than a month ago, I hitchhiked up north, to Tzfat, and to Tiberias, to the Jezreel Valley, and to Meron. On the same day, Israel's offensive on Gaza escalated to undeclared war when Hamas kidnapped two Israelis and the Israeli government clamped down with force. Now, the war in Gaza is forgotten as crude numbers of innocent Lebanese civilians die every day and rockets rain down on Israel - in Tzfat, and Tiberias, the Jezreel Valley, and Meron - killing innocent Israelis.
The day the first Katyusha hit Nahariya - where about two months ago I hitchhiked and ate free hummus from Marwan the hummus man - killing a woman, injuring dozens and scaring the living daylights out of thousands more, I was riding on only an hour and a half of sleep, starting work at 7 am. I sat down at the computer, saw the message on the wire: 'Katyusha hits Nahariya; casualties feared' and set about writing and reporting as if it weren't Nahariya, where I have hitchhiked and eaten free hummus from Marwan the hummus man.
I did that all day long. Even when the first Katyusha hit Tzfat, and my friend called to ask what the hell her sister was supposed to do, the rocket was meters away and she was freaking out. What do I know? I told her to tell her sister to go underground and stay out of the streets.
The day went on, the Katyushas kept flying, and I kept trying to relate to it the way I would treat a bomb in Iraq, or even a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Of course, if I lived in Iraq, I would leave.
I'm not leaving here. I don't know why. This government does not have my undivided support. Israel has the right to defend itself, but it does not have the right to swing its explosive arms around civilians. Israel should have negotiated immediately with Hamas. It should have gone to the United Nations, not to its arsenals. Hundreds of innocent people are suffering from attacks whose justification are tantamount to stubborn ideology. With each air strike in Lebanon and artillery fire in Gaza, I try to remember why I live in Israel, and if I am a zionist, and if I ever was a zionist, and whether being a zionist requires supporting a war that will probably secure us another two or five years of peace at the price of hundreds, if not thousands more lives.
Media is the third leg of this war, the comptroller of military and government. I work round the clock and when I'm not working, my mind is colonized. Under siege. I can't go up north. I can't hitchhike. Hezbollah has taken my freedom away from me, like we have taken the freedom away from the Palestinians. Let's not talk about what came first - now we are both under siege, as we have been in a more indirect way for decades.
After work Thursday I passed out fully clothed on my bed, exhausted, from a night of drinking and day of war reporting in an air conditioned Tel Aviv office. The phone rang about three hours later. I only sort of heard it, but answered it anyway. The voice: "What the hell happened in Haifa?"
It was my dad. When I told him I didn't know, I'd been sleeping, he said, "go look on the internet." I did.
I wanted to crawl under the covers and hide, but decided I had to get out of the house. My friend Yoav's band was playing on the roof of an amazing neighborhood shanti-Indian restaurant. I missed the first half off the show, eating and drinking beer with Ella and her/everyone's dog Raven, but when I sat down, I fell apart.
The front guitar man said, "We're going to play a song now that connects more than anything we've played to what's going on."
I figured he was talking about the ambiance - not everyone was obsessed with the situation, right? - and he was, in a larger sense of the word.
"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear evil, because you are with me." The tune was beautiful, and the words were pentrating. My body started to relax, and I, who never cry, felt tears streaming through the broken dams of my eyes and emotion. I covered my eyes, let the tears flow. "Here we have a world, here we have life, here we have love. Just a smile on our faces," they sang, "we have love."
All we need is love, I guess, but what we have instead is ideology and war. We have desk journalists like me sitting in Tel Aviv rooms complaining about quashed freedom when people, in every nook of surrounding, are dying and in the line of fire. Iran - a country sworn to the destruction of Israel - has given a guerilla organization long-range missiles that can reach up to 200 kilometers away from their launch, and my friends and family in the north are either living underground or stubbornly staying home, while I write about fear, or more accurately apprehension, of a punishment that comes with the territory I've chosen to live in. I have made a political choice to live in Israel, even though I can argue that I am here because my family is here, and my friends are here, and I have a good job, and a good life, and spirituality, and freedom, and possibilities.
Now that I'm faced with reality, it's harder to remember why anyone would choose to live in a place of war. I am choosing to operate as a civilian soldier of Israel. I want Israel to survive. I want to survive in Israel. I don't want to be afraid of noises in the air. I don't want my country to be killing innocent people by the hundreds. I don't want to be a citizen of a bully nation. I don't want to fight in the army. I don't want to be a politician. I want to live, in Israel, as a Jew, with my Arab neighbors, and my Jewish neighbors, and anyone who wants to keep this holy land beautiful and free and open to all possibility.
Hezbollah - like Hamas - knew that kidnapping Israeli soldiers was a ticket to war. A war detrimental to its civilians and to its infrastructure, but extraordinarily useful to its overall cause. Hezbollah - and Hamas - attack Israel; Israel responds with the only language it knows - war; and suddenly the international community jumps on board to pull the self-conscious bully off the revengeful underdog.
Less than a month ago, I hitchhiked up north, to Tzfat, and to Tiberias, to the Jezreel Valley, and to Meron. On the same day, Israel's offensive on Gaza escalated to undeclared war when Hamas kidnapped two Israelis and the Israeli government clamped down with force. Now, the war in Gaza is forgotten as crude numbers of innocent Lebanese civilians die every day and rockets rain down on Israel - in Tzfat, and Tiberias, the Jezreel Valley, and Meron - killing innocent Israelis.
The day the first Katyusha hit Nahariya - where about two months ago I hitchhiked and ate free hummus from Marwan the hummus man - killing a woman, injuring dozens and scaring the living daylights out of thousands more, I was riding on only an hour and a half of sleep, starting work at 7 am. I sat down at the computer, saw the message on the wire: 'Katyusha hits Nahariya; casualties feared' and set about writing and reporting as if it weren't Nahariya, where I have hitchhiked and eaten free hummus from Marwan the hummus man.
I did that all day long. Even when the first Katyusha hit Tzfat, and my friend called to ask what the hell her sister was supposed to do, the rocket was meters away and she was freaking out. What do I know? I told her to tell her sister to go underground and stay out of the streets.
The day went on, the Katyushas kept flying, and I kept trying to relate to it the way I would treat a bomb in Iraq, or even a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Of course, if I lived in Iraq, I would leave.
I'm not leaving here. I don't know why. This government does not have my undivided support. Israel has the right to defend itself, but it does not have the right to swing its explosive arms around civilians. Israel should have negotiated immediately with Hamas. It should have gone to the United Nations, not to its arsenals. Hundreds of innocent people are suffering from attacks whose justification are tantamount to stubborn ideology. With each air strike in Lebanon and artillery fire in Gaza, I try to remember why I live in Israel, and if I am a zionist, and if I ever was a zionist, and whether being a zionist requires supporting a war that will probably secure us another two or five years of peace at the price of hundreds, if not thousands more lives.
Media is the third leg of this war, the comptroller of military and government. I work round the clock and when I'm not working, my mind is colonized. Under siege. I can't go up north. I can't hitchhike. Hezbollah has taken my freedom away from me, like we have taken the freedom away from the Palestinians. Let's not talk about what came first - now we are both under siege, as we have been in a more indirect way for decades.
After work Thursday I passed out fully clothed on my bed, exhausted, from a night of drinking and day of war reporting in an air conditioned Tel Aviv office. The phone rang about three hours later. I only sort of heard it, but answered it anyway. The voice: "What the hell happened in Haifa?"
It was my dad. When I told him I didn't know, I'd been sleeping, he said, "go look on the internet." I did.
I wanted to crawl under the covers and hide, but decided I had to get out of the house. My friend Yoav's band was playing on the roof of an amazing neighborhood shanti-Indian restaurant. I missed the first half off the show, eating and drinking beer with Ella and her/everyone's dog Raven, but when I sat down, I fell apart.
The front guitar man said, "We're going to play a song now that connects more than anything we've played to what's going on."
I figured he was talking about the ambiance - not everyone was obsessed with the situation, right? - and he was, in a larger sense of the word.
"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear evil, because you are with me." The tune was beautiful, and the words were pentrating. My body started to relax, and I, who never cry, felt tears streaming through the broken dams of my eyes and emotion. I covered my eyes, let the tears flow. "Here we have a world, here we have life, here we have love. Just a smile on our faces," they sang, "we have love."
All we need is love, I guess, but what we have instead is ideology and war. We have desk journalists like me sitting in Tel Aviv rooms complaining about quashed freedom when people, in every nook of surrounding, are dying and in the line of fire. Iran - a country sworn to the destruction of Israel - has given a guerilla organization long-range missiles that can reach up to 200 kilometers away from their launch, and my friends and family in the north are either living underground or stubbornly staying home, while I write about fear, or more accurately apprehension, of a punishment that comes with the territory I've chosen to live in. I have made a political choice to live in Israel, even though I can argue that I am here because my family is here, and my friends are here, and I have a good job, and a good life, and spirituality, and freedom, and possibilities.
Now that I'm faced with reality, it's harder to remember why anyone would choose to live in a place of war. I am choosing to operate as a civilian soldier of Israel. I want Israel to survive. I want to survive in Israel. I don't want to be afraid of noises in the air. I don't want my country to be killing innocent people by the hundreds. I don't want to be a citizen of a bully nation. I don't want to fight in the army. I don't want to be a politician. I want to live, in Israel, as a Jew, with my Arab neighbors, and my Jewish neighbors, and anyone who wants to keep this holy land beautiful and free and open to all possibility.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
the crippled leading the blind
Hamas is cruising its way through this situation with all the right moves. Along with two other militant groups, its armed wing crossed the Gaza border, violating the Geneva convention in doing so, and ambushed an Israeli tank, killing two soldiers and kidnapping the third. It knew the move would bring upon it a deadly and destructive IDF military offensive and it knew it would be hammered with international criticism. How could it not? Every militant heading to north Gaza to launch a virtually useless rocket at Israel knows it is making itself target for Israeli assassination - just as every suicide bomber knows his or her death, and the deaths of the Israeli civilians they attack, will be forgotten amongst the inevitably massive devastation that will result.
But it did it anyway, smoothly and logically. While Israel and innocent Palestinians sweat in war and fear, Hamas is painting itself as a 'partner in peace,' ready for non-violent negotiations and a cease-fire. Cleanly-shaven and well-dressed, Hamas leaders started by brushing off government connections to the kidnapping with vague 'reports' from the captors, and then declared that as IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit was a prisoner of war, the only fair retribution was a prisoner exchange - 1,000 women and under-18-year-olds jailed in Israel in return for Shalit.
The kidnapping, and the deaths of the two soldiers at Kerem Shalom, are beginning to fade from the spotlight. The IDF's offensive on north Gaza and the upwards of 50 Palestinian deaths, including at least seven civilians in three days, has taken center stage.
As the IDF refuses to declare war even as its shells and tanks continue to move further away from Shalit, exploding on children and militants alike, Palestinain Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and exiled political chief Khaled Meshal calmly reiterate their demands and announce their readiness to compromise. As Defense Minister Minister Amir Peretz, wide-eyed and corrupted by his unlikely position, orders the IDF to escalate its offensive, Hamas reduces its prisoner-exchange demands to 130 female non-security prisoners and sticks out its hands to a perplexed Olmert, who continues to refuse any negotiations with Hamas.
Israel has been calling the Palestinian Authority a 'terrorist government' since its inception, repeating the slogan that the Palestinians are 'no partner in peace.' Hamas, which until less than a year ago was known to the world only as a terrorist organization, has emerged on top. It is now portraying itself as the democratically-legitimate government of a certified state. It is a master of disguise. It has conveniently found a way to hold on to its mission of destroying Israel while making itself out as a reformed political faction.
Hamas knows what it is doing. It is bringing down Israel. With all its promises for negotiations and cease-fire, the Palestinian government has as its initiative the destruction of the Jewish state. It knows this initiative has a price, of lives and international opinion, but it also knows that the price is higher for Israel. The only IDF casualty in Gaza so far was due to friendly fire, while the number of Palestinians killed daily can consistently be counted on two hands. Yet the Palestinians have nothing to lose. They have already been labelled terrorists; thousands have already been killed, their future is already lost. Their children, who survive, grow into militias, while those who want an education and peace suffer beside them.
The world condemns Hamas, but it is wrecked over the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Palestinians. In waging this war, Israel is blindly leading itself into the Mediterranean sea with the wily assistance of a non-state governed by militias. The Palestinians and the Israelis are in a desperate situation, but Hamas is lucid. It knows the loss will be massive, but it is doing its all to make sure that if Gaza has to go into the sea, Israel will have to go first.
But it did it anyway, smoothly and logically. While Israel and innocent Palestinians sweat in war and fear, Hamas is painting itself as a 'partner in peace,' ready for non-violent negotiations and a cease-fire. Cleanly-shaven and well-dressed, Hamas leaders started by brushing off government connections to the kidnapping with vague 'reports' from the captors, and then declared that as IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit was a prisoner of war, the only fair retribution was a prisoner exchange - 1,000 women and under-18-year-olds jailed in Israel in return for Shalit.
The kidnapping, and the deaths of the two soldiers at Kerem Shalom, are beginning to fade from the spotlight. The IDF's offensive on north Gaza and the upwards of 50 Palestinian deaths, including at least seven civilians in three days, has taken center stage.
As the IDF refuses to declare war even as its shells and tanks continue to move further away from Shalit, exploding on children and militants alike, Palestinain Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and exiled political chief Khaled Meshal calmly reiterate their demands and announce their readiness to compromise. As Defense Minister Minister Amir Peretz, wide-eyed and corrupted by his unlikely position, orders the IDF to escalate its offensive, Hamas reduces its prisoner-exchange demands to 130 female non-security prisoners and sticks out its hands to a perplexed Olmert, who continues to refuse any negotiations with Hamas.
Israel has been calling the Palestinian Authority a 'terrorist government' since its inception, repeating the slogan that the Palestinians are 'no partner in peace.' Hamas, which until less than a year ago was known to the world only as a terrorist organization, has emerged on top. It is now portraying itself as the democratically-legitimate government of a certified state. It is a master of disguise. It has conveniently found a way to hold on to its mission of destroying Israel while making itself out as a reformed political faction.
Hamas knows what it is doing. It is bringing down Israel. With all its promises for negotiations and cease-fire, the Palestinian government has as its initiative the destruction of the Jewish state. It knows this initiative has a price, of lives and international opinion, but it also knows that the price is higher for Israel. The only IDF casualty in Gaza so far was due to friendly fire, while the number of Palestinians killed daily can consistently be counted on two hands. Yet the Palestinians have nothing to lose. They have already been labelled terrorists; thousands have already been killed, their future is already lost. Their children, who survive, grow into militias, while those who want an education and peace suffer beside them.
The world condemns Hamas, but it is wrecked over the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Palestinians. In waging this war, Israel is blindly leading itself into the Mediterranean sea with the wily assistance of a non-state governed by militias. The Palestinians and the Israelis are in a desperate situation, but Hamas is lucid. It knows the loss will be massive, but it is doing its all to make sure that if Gaza has to go into the sea, Israel will have to go first.
Monday, July 10, 2006
'balanced' 'war' tactics
The New York Times writes,
JERUSALEM — The pattern has recurred time and again for several years: Palestinians fire rockets from northern Gaza that cause damage or casualties only occasionally, yet prompt a tough Israeli response, like the offensive now under way.
Why, then, do the Palestinians persist in firing the crude, inaccurate rockets when there is virtual certainty that the damage they inflict will be far less than the punishment they will suffer?
(Read article)
JERUSALEM — The pattern has recurred time and again for several years: Palestinians fire rockets from northern Gaza that cause damage or casualties only occasionally, yet prompt a tough Israeli response, like the offensive now under way.
Why, then, do the Palestinians persist in firing the crude, inaccurate rockets when there is virtual certainty that the damage they inflict will be far less than the punishment they will suffer?
(Read article)
Friday, July 07, 2006
don't ask
When I heard sometime in mid-March that 'folk surrealist' Devendra Banhart would be performing in Israel in early July, I got a new excuse to push off my "vacation" another few months.
First, the "vacation." I have about 40 hours of scheduled shifts and 128 hours of freedom every week, never the same time or day as the last, but I keep telling myself I should take a vacation. Go visit my father in Detroit, and friends in Montreal, and family in California, and mountains in Colorado and British Columbia, and Amsterdam, and the alps, and France, and India. Big plans, but every month I push them off. I haven't left Israel in 12 months.
Life is good. I live in a virtual war zone, war zone because it is, virtual because I only know about it from the news I write and read, but life for me has been good. All superstitions on.
Though I knew about Devendra, and used it as an excuse for how much I didn't need to leave this country, I didn't try to buy a ticket until the morning of the show. It's how I bought my ticket for Roger Waters, less-favored lead singer of the band that, with only cliche applicable, changed my life when I heard it for the first time at 14. I knew I wanted to see Roger Waters, I knew I didn't want to pay 375 shekels for the ticket, yet I knew that I would get into the show.
For Roger Waters, it worked. I called Elisha at 10 am and asked him to go get me a ticket, I'd pay him back, there were only 50 left. He called me at 12:30, said he bought me a ticket, and there were now four left.
It didn't work so well with Devendra. Though I like his muisc, Devendra didn't figure on my list of cliche-spawning life-changing musicians, so when I called the club and was told the show was sold out, I wasn't worried, even thought at least two people had told me the day before that I should not miss this show.
I was supposed to work until 11 p.m. anyway, so I figured I'd get to the show after work, an hour after opening, and convince the bouncers to let me in for free or cheap to see the end.
When I got to the club, at 11:15, there were only a few stragglers outside, including my roommate and her friend. Her friend had called me half an hour before telling me he had an extra ticket for 100 instead of 150 shekels, and then called again 20 minutes later to tell me the guy who was supposed to bring him the ticket had either bailed or gone inside. No ticket.
The friend, Nitzan, handed me his beer, and the roommate, Rona, reminded me I should have gotten a ticket two days before.
Then Devendra and his crew walked by. Devendra held up by his crew. Nitzan called out something, in what sounded like English, to Devendra. He turned back, and then walked through the first gate into the venue.
"I'm going to get a ticket from Devendra," I said, and walked up to the gate.
"Hey Devendra," I called out. He turned around and came over to the gate. "I don't have a ticket to the show, but I really want to come in," I said. "Any chance?"
"What's your name?" He asked, from the other side of the gate.
"Aliyana Traison," I said.
"Aliyana Terson?"
"Traison."
"I'll see what I can do," he said, and turned back toward the venue.
I started to turn to Nitzan and Rona, who came over to the gate, and barely had time to think 'this is not going to work', when I heard someone say, "Aliyana."
I looked up. Devendra was standing about 30 feet away from me, giving me a double thumbs-up.
"You're in," someone said.
"Aliyana Traison," the bouncer said.
"Follow Devendra," Rona and Nitzan said.
I waltzed through the gate, up the ramp, and hit two new bouncers, who had never heard of Aliyana Traison, or Devendra Banhart, and sent me to the guest list brigade. The guest list brigade, feverishly looking up and down their Hebrew lists while I pretended not to speak Hebrew, told me I wasn't on the list. Of course I wasn't, I said, call Devendra. Who is Devendra, they asked.
We sorted it out. The woman called Devendra and asked if someone named Aliyana Traison was on his list, he said Of course, and the two new bouncers who were really just puppies apologized to me and cleared the way.
VIP, but that's where my relationship with Devendra ended. During the show he looked right in my direction and told everyone he wanted to introduce the person he loved most in the world, his dad, who was standing right behind me, holding a beer and thoroughly enjoying Devendra, who was barely able to stand at this point.
His music is 'surreal,' it's 'folk,' it's lyrical tongue twisters with jazzy undertones, and he is charming, a contemporary Jim Morrison. He sometimes sacrifices his musical genius for charisma on stage, but he's got both, and more than that, he really appreciates how much he is appreciated.
First, the "vacation." I have about 40 hours of scheduled shifts and 128 hours of freedom every week, never the same time or day as the last, but I keep telling myself I should take a vacation. Go visit my father in Detroit, and friends in Montreal, and family in California, and mountains in Colorado and British Columbia, and Amsterdam, and the alps, and France, and India. Big plans, but every month I push them off. I haven't left Israel in 12 months.
Life is good. I live in a virtual war zone, war zone because it is, virtual because I only know about it from the news I write and read, but life for me has been good. All superstitions on.
Though I knew about Devendra, and used it as an excuse for how much I didn't need to leave this country, I didn't try to buy a ticket until the morning of the show. It's how I bought my ticket for Roger Waters, less-favored lead singer of the band that, with only cliche applicable, changed my life when I heard it for the first time at 14. I knew I wanted to see Roger Waters, I knew I didn't want to pay 375 shekels for the ticket, yet I knew that I would get into the show.
For Roger Waters, it worked. I called Elisha at 10 am and asked him to go get me a ticket, I'd pay him back, there were only 50 left. He called me at 12:30, said he bought me a ticket, and there were now four left.
It didn't work so well with Devendra. Though I like his muisc, Devendra didn't figure on my list of cliche-spawning life-changing musicians, so when I called the club and was told the show was sold out, I wasn't worried, even thought at least two people had told me the day before that I should not miss this show.
I was supposed to work until 11 p.m. anyway, so I figured I'd get to the show after work, an hour after opening, and convince the bouncers to let me in for free or cheap to see the end.
When I got to the club, at 11:15, there were only a few stragglers outside, including my roommate and her friend. Her friend had called me half an hour before telling me he had an extra ticket for 100 instead of 150 shekels, and then called again 20 minutes later to tell me the guy who was supposed to bring him the ticket had either bailed or gone inside. No ticket.
The friend, Nitzan, handed me his beer, and the roommate, Rona, reminded me I should have gotten a ticket two days before.
Then Devendra and his crew walked by. Devendra held up by his crew. Nitzan called out something, in what sounded like English, to Devendra. He turned back, and then walked through the first gate into the venue.
"I'm going to get a ticket from Devendra," I said, and walked up to the gate.
"Hey Devendra," I called out. He turned around and came over to the gate. "I don't have a ticket to the show, but I really want to come in," I said. "Any chance?"
"What's your name?" He asked, from the other side of the gate.
"Aliyana Traison," I said.
"Aliyana Terson?"
"Traison."
"I'll see what I can do," he said, and turned back toward the venue.
I started to turn to Nitzan and Rona, who came over to the gate, and barely had time to think 'this is not going to work', when I heard someone say, "Aliyana."
I looked up. Devendra was standing about 30 feet away from me, giving me a double thumbs-up.
"You're in," someone said.
"Aliyana Traison," the bouncer said.
"Follow Devendra," Rona and Nitzan said.
I waltzed through the gate, up the ramp, and hit two new bouncers, who had never heard of Aliyana Traison, or Devendra Banhart, and sent me to the guest list brigade. The guest list brigade, feverishly looking up and down their Hebrew lists while I pretended not to speak Hebrew, told me I wasn't on the list. Of course I wasn't, I said, call Devendra. Who is Devendra, they asked.
We sorted it out. The woman called Devendra and asked if someone named Aliyana Traison was on his list, he said Of course, and the two new bouncers who were really just puppies apologized to me and cleared the way.
VIP, but that's where my relationship with Devendra ended. During the show he looked right in my direction and told everyone he wanted to introduce the person he loved most in the world, his dad, who was standing right behind me, holding a beer and thoroughly enjoying Devendra, who was barely able to stand at this point.
His music is 'surreal,' it's 'folk,' it's lyrical tongue twisters with jazzy undertones, and he is charming, a contemporary Jim Morrison. He sometimes sacrifices his musical genius for charisma on stage, but he's got both, and more than that, he really appreciates how much he is appreciated.
savta
I was woken up at least four times this morning by the phone ringing and people telling me important things. I don't remember who I talked to or what they said. I do remember my mom calling and like in a dream, because maybe I still was, telling me my grandmother was in the hospital, about to go into surgery, because of an overnight emergency. Something to do with her intestines. Would I like to speak to her, she has a tube down her throat.
Shuffle, phone passed to savta. I don't remember what I said, I don't remember what she said, I just remember that it was of utmost importance for me to speak to her. I think I told her I love her. She had a tube down her throat. I think she told me the same thing.
All day long, when the phone rang and I saw my sister's or my mother's number, I got very scared and my head started to hurt. It kept pounding. She was out of surgery, in intensive care, but not breathing on her own. Apparently that was normal, for her age, her heart condition.
When I was 17, completely unconnected to grandparents or life or death, I had a somewhat nervous breakdown. Less nervous than empty. Then release, like water gushing from a broken cork. I didn't feel anything for three days. I went to school, I think I even talked, but I didn't feel. I didn't know who I was. I didn't recognize my body. I just watched, and went through the motions, and didn't do anything weird or crazy. Just was. Three days later my mother, looking into my unfeeling, nervously-breaking-down face, told me my grandfather was very sick and in the hospital.
I bawled. I felt more than I'd felt in three days, more than I'd felt in three weeks, three months, three years.
He died a year and a half later,on my second day living in Montreal. I wasn't near anybody in my family. I wasn't ready.
I'm not ready. My grandmother is 78 years old, and she still works full-time. She's a Holocaust survivor, and probably the most hard-working person I know. One of the most alive. She was always more like a mother than a grandmother, and only now do I finally recognize that she is getting old. She, who's been through worse in her life than I could imagine and still always comes out beautiful, if neurotic, is getting tired.
But she's alive. We're supposed to take a trip together, with my mother and my sister. That, I'm ready for.
Shuffle, phone passed to savta. I don't remember what I said, I don't remember what she said, I just remember that it was of utmost importance for me to speak to her. I think I told her I love her. She had a tube down her throat. I think she told me the same thing.
All day long, when the phone rang and I saw my sister's or my mother's number, I got very scared and my head started to hurt. It kept pounding. She was out of surgery, in intensive care, but not breathing on her own. Apparently that was normal, for her age, her heart condition.
When I was 17, completely unconnected to grandparents or life or death, I had a somewhat nervous breakdown. Less nervous than empty. Then release, like water gushing from a broken cork. I didn't feel anything for three days. I went to school, I think I even talked, but I didn't feel. I didn't know who I was. I didn't recognize my body. I just watched, and went through the motions, and didn't do anything weird or crazy. Just was. Three days later my mother, looking into my unfeeling, nervously-breaking-down face, told me my grandfather was very sick and in the hospital.
I bawled. I felt more than I'd felt in three days, more than I'd felt in three weeks, three months, three years.
He died a year and a half later,on my second day living in Montreal. I wasn't near anybody in my family. I wasn't ready.
I'm not ready. My grandmother is 78 years old, and she still works full-time. She's a Holocaust survivor, and probably the most hard-working person I know. One of the most alive. She was always more like a mother than a grandmother, and only now do I finally recognize that she is getting old. She, who's been through worse in her life than I could imagine and still always comes out beautiful, if neurotic, is getting tired.
But she's alive. We're supposed to take a trip together, with my mother and my sister. That, I'm ready for.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
fantasy-land
When Hamas was capturing Gilad Shalit from a tank position on the Gaza border and the Palestinian Resistance Committees were abducting Eliyahu Asheri as he hitchhiked up the West Bank on his way to a camping trip, I was in the north trying to catch a ride with some friends to the Kinneret.
One of us got a text message about the first kidnapping, but we didn't hear it. We were on our own fantasy-land adventure.
I decided Saturday night to take a midnight bus to Tsfat, since I was supposed to go to nearby Kadita with Tiferet on Friday and then bailed because I'd been at the Roger Waters show the night before and couldn't handle the idea of trekking north before Shabbat. Meir said he would go with me. I'd ended up spending Shabbat at my friend's parents "house" (mansion, by Israeli standards) with 10 other people, one of whom forgot his bag there. So before heading north, we went to the guy's house to return his bag. Someone there told us to go to a dinner honoring our friends who just got married, so we figured we'd go for 15 minutes. We'd been there for five when this guy came in, looked at me in the eye, told me he was the groom's cousin, had seen me at the wedding, and asked me my name. I told him who I was, said we were leaving for Tsfat in 10 minutes, and asked him if he wanted to go. He stood up, said yes, and 10 minutes later we were off.
We got to Tsfat at probably the same time Palestinian militants crossed the Gaza border and ambushed Shalit and his crew, abducting him, killing two of his friends, and injuring one.
Halfway up north, we debated whether to go straight to Tsfat or straight to the Kinneret. Public transportation being what it is at 3:00 in the morning, we opted to stay on our bus and get to Tsfat. When we got to what is one of the oddest cities in the world, we grabbed a couple of mattresses and a guitar from a guy at Meir's old school, and climbed up the roof of an old synagogue dedicated to the great Kabbalist Isaac Luria. We played music and talked about harmony and fell asleep in the sun.
We spent the next day wandering around Tsfat, and then headed toward the Golan. No-one stopped for us. We didn't know Eliyahu Asheri was doing the same thing in the West Bank. We didn't know he was being kidnapped and killed. We decided to go to the Kinneret. It was hot and we didn't want to spend the whole day on the road.
We ended up spending most of the day on the road. The driving force of these treks around Israel is the journey. It's the hitchhiking and the amazing people who drift into your life for a Lord of the Rings-like adventure on a random day when you should be working but happen to not. We got to a beautiful little jungle cove on the Kinneret, and pushed our way through the smelly piles of garbage that obtrusively invade the air and water, emerging in what really looked like paradise; all green and blue and white, huge trees and lake and crabs, and a natural pool, and beds of rocks. We stayed for a few hours, and then Tiferet came, and we started walking along the shore, looking for a place to sleep.
We found ourselves on the road. A young couple in a nice car pulled over and said, "get in. This is totally unsafe." We crammed into the car. They dropped us off at a kibbutz, where we wandered around looking for a beach. We snuck past the hotel, and were promptly herded out by a guard who showed us a reed-infested, mosquito-swarming, patch of dry grass to sleep on instead. The trek continued, this time on foot, through the fields and the orchard, and now the dark, about 3 km until we made it to a fairly muddy, but fairly accesssible beach. We lit a fire, and went swimming. The ground was too muddy to sleep on. I found a restaurant about 200 meters down the beach, deserted, with white leather benches on a patio. I curled up and slept for a few hours. I found everybody else in the morning in an orchard behind the beach, where there was one tree connected by branches with six different trunks. The owner of the house told us it had been in his family for 80 years, and that every time a branch reaches the ground, it becomes absorbed into the earth and then grows more roots, another trunk. He gave us each another lichi.
We started the trek home together, and then split up. I got to Tel Aviv early Monday afternoon, and passed out for five hours. I hadn't had a good night sleep since Tuesday. At 12 am I went to work. I'd looked at the website before crashing and updated myself, but now I was at work. No more fantasy-land. Two people were kidnapped. It wasn't clear if either were alive.
It became clearer over the next few days. Eliyahu's body was found Thursday morning in a field in Ramallah. The IDF had dismissed the PRC's claim of kidnapping a civilian, and his parents didn't report him missing until Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, his kidnappers showed his ID card. His parents thought he was going camping. So did he.
Israeli tanks moved into southern Gaza a week ago Wednesday, the IDF's first ground incursion there since it pulled its troops last September. Prime Minister Olmert swore this was not a bid to reoccupy Gaza. Israel has no intention of staying in Gaza, he said. We just want to bring our boy home.
They started by bombing three bridges in central Gaza, splitting the strip between north and south. Intelligence had heard Shalit was being held near Khan Yunis, in the south, and that the kidnappers were planning to cross into Sinai. The tanks crossed the border.
Hamas offered to negotiate on Shalit's life, first saying it would release information, and then the soldier himself, if 1,000 women and under-18-year-old prisoners from Israeli jails. Israel said no negotiations, "we will not succumb to extortion." Then Olmert said, well, maybe non-security prisoners. Then balked. 'No,' he affirmed it, 'no negotiations.' Hamas issued an ultimatum: Israel had until 6 A.M. Wednesday (a week after the incursion) to realease the prisoners or suffer the un-specified "consequences." Israel chose the consequences: "We will not succumb to extortion..." yet "we just want to bring our boy home."
Esther Wachsman, the mother of the last IDF soldier to be kidnapped by Hamas, in 1994, wrote in Haaretz that while she in no way advocated the release of terrorists from prison, she begged Israel to reconsider its offensive in Gaza. Nachshon Wachsman was killed during the IDF operation to free him, along with another soldier. Esther Wachsman writes that on the same day Hamas issued a similar ultimatum on her son's life - prisoner for prisoner - Peres, Rabin and Araft announced that they were to receive the Nobel peace prize. When asked what kind of peace they had achieved in light of Nachshon Wachsman's abduction, Peres answered, "in war, we must take calculated risks."
The IDF moved on into northern Gaza yesterday. It's what Israel's been wanting to do since September, ever since the settlements were crumbled and the Qassam rockets started flying daily into the western Negev town of Sderot. They moved into Gaza even before Tuesday's rocket hit the empty parking lot of a school in central Ashkelon. They moved into northern Gaza to slam the launching sites and the militants behind them from all sides, on the ground, not just from the air. The air hasn't proven so effective - three different strikes on Qassam-firing militants ended up killing 14 civilians in three weeks, and injuring just a few of the militants.
The IDF has wanted to return to the ground in Gaza since it left. It just hasn't had the excuse. It stuck to air strikes, because while denounced, it wasn't outright occupation. Now they've got the excuse - a captured soldier - and have conveniently twisted the operation to include all the errands they've had to run in the northern Strip and throughout. Olmert said the plan was to make sure Gazans didn't sleep at night. He wants to bring our boy home. And stop Qassams. And put pressure on Palestinian civilians - as if this is the kind of pressure that's going to do anything other than create and sustain a new generation of Palestinians who are going to hate Israel with even more of a passion and more of a justification than their parents for all their brothers and sisters and uncles and friends and mothers and fathers killed by IDF fire.
Three Qassam rockets, at 15 kilometers their longest range yet, landed in Ashkelon in the last two days. Israel called this a 'declaration of war,' as it does so often, and the air force bombarded the north, where most launching sites sit in the rubble of former settlements. Now that they were already in Gaza, reoccupying militarily, the IDF rolled right up to the north, and showed what they meant by war. But the history of the region is one of pattern. It doesn't lie. With each IDF or Palestinian attack, comes a response even fiercer than the one before.
If the government wanted to bring Gilad Shalit home, it would negotiate, or focalize its operation, not use it as an excuse to have its way with Gaza.
One of us got a text message about the first kidnapping, but we didn't hear it. We were on our own fantasy-land adventure.
I decided Saturday night to take a midnight bus to Tsfat, since I was supposed to go to nearby Kadita with Tiferet on Friday and then bailed because I'd been at the Roger Waters show the night before and couldn't handle the idea of trekking north before Shabbat. Meir said he would go with me. I'd ended up spending Shabbat at my friend's parents "house" (mansion, by Israeli standards) with 10 other people, one of whom forgot his bag there. So before heading north, we went to the guy's house to return his bag. Someone there told us to go to a dinner honoring our friends who just got married, so we figured we'd go for 15 minutes. We'd been there for five when this guy came in, looked at me in the eye, told me he was the groom's cousin, had seen me at the wedding, and asked me my name. I told him who I was, said we were leaving for Tsfat in 10 minutes, and asked him if he wanted to go. He stood up, said yes, and 10 minutes later we were off.
We got to Tsfat at probably the same time Palestinian militants crossed the Gaza border and ambushed Shalit and his crew, abducting him, killing two of his friends, and injuring one.
Halfway up north, we debated whether to go straight to Tsfat or straight to the Kinneret. Public transportation being what it is at 3:00 in the morning, we opted to stay on our bus and get to Tsfat. When we got to what is one of the oddest cities in the world, we grabbed a couple of mattresses and a guitar from a guy at Meir's old school, and climbed up the roof of an old synagogue dedicated to the great Kabbalist Isaac Luria. We played music and talked about harmony and fell asleep in the sun.
We spent the next day wandering around Tsfat, and then headed toward the Golan. No-one stopped for us. We didn't know Eliyahu Asheri was doing the same thing in the West Bank. We didn't know he was being kidnapped and killed. We decided to go to the Kinneret. It was hot and we didn't want to spend the whole day on the road.
We ended up spending most of the day on the road. The driving force of these treks around Israel is the journey. It's the hitchhiking and the amazing people who drift into your life for a Lord of the Rings-like adventure on a random day when you should be working but happen to not. We got to a beautiful little jungle cove on the Kinneret, and pushed our way through the smelly piles of garbage that obtrusively invade the air and water, emerging in what really looked like paradise; all green and blue and white, huge trees and lake and crabs, and a natural pool, and beds of rocks. We stayed for a few hours, and then Tiferet came, and we started walking along the shore, looking for a place to sleep.
We found ourselves on the road. A young couple in a nice car pulled over and said, "get in. This is totally unsafe." We crammed into the car. They dropped us off at a kibbutz, where we wandered around looking for a beach. We snuck past the hotel, and were promptly herded out by a guard who showed us a reed-infested, mosquito-swarming, patch of dry grass to sleep on instead. The trek continued, this time on foot, through the fields and the orchard, and now the dark, about 3 km until we made it to a fairly muddy, but fairly accesssible beach. We lit a fire, and went swimming. The ground was too muddy to sleep on. I found a restaurant about 200 meters down the beach, deserted, with white leather benches on a patio. I curled up and slept for a few hours. I found everybody else in the morning in an orchard behind the beach, where there was one tree connected by branches with six different trunks. The owner of the house told us it had been in his family for 80 years, and that every time a branch reaches the ground, it becomes absorbed into the earth and then grows more roots, another trunk. He gave us each another lichi.
We started the trek home together, and then split up. I got to Tel Aviv early Monday afternoon, and passed out for five hours. I hadn't had a good night sleep since Tuesday. At 12 am I went to work. I'd looked at the website before crashing and updated myself, but now I was at work. No more fantasy-land. Two people were kidnapped. It wasn't clear if either were alive.
It became clearer over the next few days. Eliyahu's body was found Thursday morning in a field in Ramallah. The IDF had dismissed the PRC's claim of kidnapping a civilian, and his parents didn't report him missing until Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, his kidnappers showed his ID card. His parents thought he was going camping. So did he.
Israeli tanks moved into southern Gaza a week ago Wednesday, the IDF's first ground incursion there since it pulled its troops last September. Prime Minister Olmert swore this was not a bid to reoccupy Gaza. Israel has no intention of staying in Gaza, he said. We just want to bring our boy home.
They started by bombing three bridges in central Gaza, splitting the strip between north and south. Intelligence had heard Shalit was being held near Khan Yunis, in the south, and that the kidnappers were planning to cross into Sinai. The tanks crossed the border.
Hamas offered to negotiate on Shalit's life, first saying it would release information, and then the soldier himself, if 1,000 women and under-18-year-old prisoners from Israeli jails. Israel said no negotiations, "we will not succumb to extortion." Then Olmert said, well, maybe non-security prisoners. Then balked. 'No,' he affirmed it, 'no negotiations.' Hamas issued an ultimatum: Israel had until 6 A.M. Wednesday (a week after the incursion) to realease the prisoners or suffer the un-specified "consequences." Israel chose the consequences: "We will not succumb to extortion..." yet "we just want to bring our boy home."
Esther Wachsman, the mother of the last IDF soldier to be kidnapped by Hamas, in 1994, wrote in Haaretz that while she in no way advocated the release of terrorists from prison, she begged Israel to reconsider its offensive in Gaza. Nachshon Wachsman was killed during the IDF operation to free him, along with another soldier. Esther Wachsman writes that on the same day Hamas issued a similar ultimatum on her son's life - prisoner for prisoner - Peres, Rabin and Araft announced that they were to receive the Nobel peace prize. When asked what kind of peace they had achieved in light of Nachshon Wachsman's abduction, Peres answered, "in war, we must take calculated risks."
The IDF moved on into northern Gaza yesterday. It's what Israel's been wanting to do since September, ever since the settlements were crumbled and the Qassam rockets started flying daily into the western Negev town of Sderot. They moved into Gaza even before Tuesday's rocket hit the empty parking lot of a school in central Ashkelon. They moved into northern Gaza to slam the launching sites and the militants behind them from all sides, on the ground, not just from the air. The air hasn't proven so effective - three different strikes on Qassam-firing militants ended up killing 14 civilians in three weeks, and injuring just a few of the militants.
The IDF has wanted to return to the ground in Gaza since it left. It just hasn't had the excuse. It stuck to air strikes, because while denounced, it wasn't outright occupation. Now they've got the excuse - a captured soldier - and have conveniently twisted the operation to include all the errands they've had to run in the northern Strip and throughout. Olmert said the plan was to make sure Gazans didn't sleep at night. He wants to bring our boy home. And stop Qassams. And put pressure on Palestinian civilians - as if this is the kind of pressure that's going to do anything other than create and sustain a new generation of Palestinians who are going to hate Israel with even more of a passion and more of a justification than their parents for all their brothers and sisters and uncles and friends and mothers and fathers killed by IDF fire.
Three Qassam rockets, at 15 kilometers their longest range yet, landed in Ashkelon in the last two days. Israel called this a 'declaration of war,' as it does so often, and the air force bombarded the north, where most launching sites sit in the rubble of former settlements. Now that they were already in Gaza, reoccupying militarily, the IDF rolled right up to the north, and showed what they meant by war. But the history of the region is one of pattern. It doesn't lie. With each IDF or Palestinian attack, comes a response even fiercer than the one before.
If the government wanted to bring Gilad Shalit home, it would negotiate, or focalize its operation, not use it as an excuse to have its way with Gaza.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Jason Reaven
On my ride to work yesterday morning from Jerusalem where I'd slept only two and a half hours, I was the only non-Arab non-male. Instead of joining 99 percent of public transportation in the hourly news update on Israel Radio, we listened to Muslim morning prayers. I prayed no-one would die that day from any side in this conflict. I didn't ask for world peace, I just asked for a day without casualties.
I should be honest that it was just one of those quick prayers, the kind that pops into your head as more of a thought than a proclamation and festers around for a while until it feels like a legitime request for god, complete with ultimatums and promises.
My sister left me a message sometime in the middle of the morning, something about crazy news. When I called her back she asked me if I remembered Jason Reaven from camp. It took a minute to connect name and face and character, but when I did I remembered a really nice guy a couple years younger than me who walked around with a guitar and made everyone feel good.
Three masked men knocked on his door in the middle of the night last Thursday, and tied up his roommates with duct tape and clothes, and then robbed them. Jason came out of his room and asked the men what they were doing there. They shot him in the head.
In an instant. The robbers fled. His friend broke out of the bindings and ran to a neighbor's house to get help. In an instant, in a nice neighborhood, to a nice kid in Ohio.
I read some articles about it. They all read like an article about a 22-year-old man who was shot in the head by robbers who then fled. If you have any information, contact the police. Another tragedy, in an instant, paths crossed, snap decisions, then the unbelievable. Not just a story. Not just a news article. A person.
I should be honest that it was just one of those quick prayers, the kind that pops into your head as more of a thought than a proclamation and festers around for a while until it feels like a legitime request for god, complete with ultimatums and promises.
My sister left me a message sometime in the middle of the morning, something about crazy news. When I called her back she asked me if I remembered Jason Reaven from camp. It took a minute to connect name and face and character, but when I did I remembered a really nice guy a couple years younger than me who walked around with a guitar and made everyone feel good.
Three masked men knocked on his door in the middle of the night last Thursday, and tied up his roommates with duct tape and clothes, and then robbed them. Jason came out of his room and asked the men what they were doing there. They shot him in the head.
In an instant. The robbers fled. His friend broke out of the bindings and ran to a neighbor's house to get help. In an instant, in a nice neighborhood, to a nice kid in Ohio.
I read some articles about it. They all read like an article about a 22-year-old man who was shot in the head by robbers who then fled. If you have any information, contact the police. Another tragedy, in an instant, paths crossed, snap decisions, then the unbelievable. Not just a story. Not just a news article. A person.
citizen nation
Haaretz writes (I translate),
The Bedouin sector is to submit a counter-report to the United Nations alongside the official state report on discrimination, as part of its demand that the international body help fight systemic discrimination against Bedouin in Israel.
When the Justice Ministry submits its report in August, social groups will simultaneously submit documents criticizing the state report and elucidating state discrimination against the Bedouin sector. Bedouin say they are not treated as equal citizens in Israel.
Israel is a signatory to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, and periodically submits reports on advancements in the arena.
The state will submit its next report in Geneva in August. The Negev Coexistence Forum, in conjunction with Physicians for Human Rights, prepared a counter report pointing out failings in the state report.
Services: According to the state report, in Bedouin towns citizens "receive services at a level equal to every other citizen in the state."
According to the counter-report, there are six Bedouin towns recognized as "permanent communities" and one city, Rahat. There is no public transportation in any of the towns. Rahat has 40,000 residents, one post office, one bank, and no public library. The towns do not have any of these services, unlikes Jewish towns with an equal number of residents, according to the Adva Center.
Land: The state report writes that "members of the Bedouin community were given more land per person than any other population."
The counter-report shows a different picture. There are currently 45 Bedouin villages, among which only 10 are legally recognized. Despite the more than hundred Jewish agricultural villages in the Negev, until recently there was not a single Bedouin agricultural village. The two Bedouin villages now defined as "agricultural" were not given proper water rations or crop rations, according to former Bedouin Administration chairman and current Rahat city adviser Eli Atzmon.
Haya Noah, of the Negev Coexistence Forum, said land allocation in one village is 10,000 dunam for 1,000 people, compared to Jewish communities who are each given thousands of dunams for fewer than one hundred families.
Water: The state reports that since 1997, the sedentary population in unrecognized villages have had access to water. The Bedouin Administration claims that in 2003, the water committee converged only four times, and approved only six out of 80 requests for water. Bedouin say that in certain cases it took a year to hook up a water system and at a cost of NIS 10,000.
Religion: Israeli law grants its citizens access to holy sites. According to the Bedouin report, the city of Be'er Sheva refused to delineate the only mosque in the city as a prayer center or as a Muslim community center, as recommended by the High Court of Justice. A city spokesperson said the building could not be used as a place of worship, but as a museum, as it hasn't been used as a mosque for over 60 years.
The Bedouin sector is to submit a counter-report to the United Nations alongside the official state report on discrimination, as part of its demand that the international body help fight systemic discrimination against Bedouin in Israel.
When the Justice Ministry submits its report in August, social groups will simultaneously submit documents criticizing the state report and elucidating state discrimination against the Bedouin sector. Bedouin say they are not treated as equal citizens in Israel.
Israel is a signatory to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, and periodically submits reports on advancements in the arena.
The state will submit its next report in Geneva in August. The Negev Coexistence Forum, in conjunction with Physicians for Human Rights, prepared a counter report pointing out failings in the state report.
Services: According to the state report, in Bedouin towns citizens "receive services at a level equal to every other citizen in the state."
According to the counter-report, there are six Bedouin towns recognized as "permanent communities" and one city, Rahat. There is no public transportation in any of the towns. Rahat has 40,000 residents, one post office, one bank, and no public library. The towns do not have any of these services, unlikes Jewish towns with an equal number of residents, according to the Adva Center.
Land: The state report writes that "members of the Bedouin community were given more land per person than any other population."
The counter-report shows a different picture. There are currently 45 Bedouin villages, among which only 10 are legally recognized. Despite the more than hundred Jewish agricultural villages in the Negev, until recently there was not a single Bedouin agricultural village. The two Bedouin villages now defined as "agricultural" were not given proper water rations or crop rations, according to former Bedouin Administration chairman and current Rahat city adviser Eli Atzmon.
Haya Noah, of the Negev Coexistence Forum, said land allocation in one village is 10,000 dunam for 1,000 people, compared to Jewish communities who are each given thousands of dunams for fewer than one hundred families.
Water: The state reports that since 1997, the sedentary population in unrecognized villages have had access to water. The Bedouin Administration claims that in 2003, the water committee converged only four times, and approved only six out of 80 requests for water. Bedouin say that in certain cases it took a year to hook up a water system and at a cost of NIS 10,000.
Religion: Israeli law grants its citizens access to holy sites. According to the Bedouin report, the city of Be'er Sheva refused to delineate the only mosque in the city as a prayer center or as a Muslim community center, as recommended by the High Court of Justice. A city spokesperson said the building could not be used as a place of worship, but as a museum, as it hasn't been used as a mosque for over 60 years.
Friday, June 30, 2006
those unruly campers
AP writes,
U.S. Forest Service officers were hit, elbowed and pelted with a rock when they tried to arrest unruly campers at a gathering of the Rainbow Family, a free-spirited, loosely affiliated band of hippies, officials said.
The confrontation Monday night was one of at least three clashes between officers and campers as thousands of the Rainbow Family gather for a weeklong outing, which officially begins Saturday. None of the injuries was serious, Forest Service spokeswoman Kimberly Vogel said Thursday.
About 5,000 members of the group, which promotes non-violence and harmony with nature, have arrived at the campsite in the Routt National Forest about 50 kilometers north of Steamboat Springs in defiance of the Forest Service, which has refused to grant the group a permit, citing the fire danger.
About 200 campers surrounded 15 officers and became verbally abusive Monday night, Vogel said. As the officers tried to arrest some campers, the crowd surged forward, striking at least three officers and pulling the suspects free, Vogel said.
Campers piled on top of one suspect, blocking officers from making an arrest. One male officer was injured when someone dived at his knees, a second suffered bruises when a rock was thrown at his leg and a female officer was elbowed in the knee and face, she said.
Officers arrested one suspect, drew their batons and used pepper spray as they backed away, Vogel said.
In the previous two clashes, campers surrounded and intimidated Forest Service officers, she said.
Campers are spread out in 20 square kilometers of meadow and forest where up to 60 percent of the trees have been killed by a beetle infestation and are vulnerable to fire, officials said. Forestry officials worry that in a fire, the narrow dirt access road would become clogged and campers would be trapped.
U.S. Forest Service officers were hit, elbowed and pelted with a rock when they tried to arrest unruly campers at a gathering of the Rainbow Family, a free-spirited, loosely affiliated band of hippies, officials said.
The confrontation Monday night was one of at least three clashes between officers and campers as thousands of the Rainbow Family gather for a weeklong outing, which officially begins Saturday. None of the injuries was serious, Forest Service spokeswoman Kimberly Vogel said Thursday.
About 5,000 members of the group, which promotes non-violence and harmony with nature, have arrived at the campsite in the Routt National Forest about 50 kilometers north of Steamboat Springs in defiance of the Forest Service, which has refused to grant the group a permit, citing the fire danger.
About 200 campers surrounded 15 officers and became verbally abusive Monday night, Vogel said. As the officers tried to arrest some campers, the crowd surged forward, striking at least three officers and pulling the suspects free, Vogel said.
Campers piled on top of one suspect, blocking officers from making an arrest. One male officer was injured when someone dived at his knees, a second suffered bruises when a rock was thrown at his leg and a female officer was elbowed in the knee and face, she said.
Officers arrested one suspect, drew their batons and used pepper spray as they backed away, Vogel said.
In the previous two clashes, campers surrounded and intimidated Forest Service officers, she said.
Campers are spread out in 20 square kilometers of meadow and forest where up to 60 percent of the trees have been killed by a beetle infestation and are vulnerable to fire, officials said. Forestry officials worry that in a fire, the narrow dirt access road would become clogged and campers would be trapped.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Mystery # 3 solved
For months, my 60-year-old pyromaniac neighbor used to light a match, toss it into the public garbage bin, and watch the flames. He did this almost every day. He would sit on a chair on the corner when the cops came by, talk to the firefighters, and watch. He wasn't trying to hurt anybody, he said, he just wanted to see how people reacted.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
the right to be cloned
A few weeks ago, Rabin-assassin Yigal Amir was caught on tape attempting to smuggle his seed from prison to his controversially betrothed, and continued to blast the Shin Bet for fabricating the report until he was sat down and shown the video himself.
Amir's smuggling attempt breached a High Court injunction prohibiting him from using in-vitro fertilization to impregnate his wife. Israel Prison Service had approved them for the procedure in March, but the court halted the proceedings after two former members of knesset petitioned to deny Amir the right to bear children.
In repayment, the High Court on Monday rejected their petition, and said although Amir "was and still is one of the most denounced criminals in Israeli national consciousness of recent generations, if not the most denounced of all," he nevertheless "has, as any other prisoner, basic human rights, from which he was not stripped upon entering the prison."
In a "proper constitutional regime," said the justices, "the human rights umbrella protects a person insofar as he is a person, including an imprisoned criminal."
The court ruled that "the considerations seeking to worsen the conditions of his imprisonment because of the severity of his crime, or to limit his human rights in revenge for his deeds, are not relevant and therefore invalid."
When would it be considered relevant and valid to limit a prisoner's human rights as punishment for the severity of his or her crime or deeds?
In legal systems that employ capital punishment, the convicted is denied the basic human right to survive. Thirty-eight out of 50 of the United States employ capital punishment. Israel, technically, does not have a death penalty, except in certain cases of war crimes or treason. It used it once, executing Adolph Eichmann for war crimes committed not geographically in Israel, but against members of the Jewish nation. The United States has a constitution of rights. Israel, technically, does not.
Yigal Amir used murder to fight a national process for peace and security. Israel condones the death penalty in certain cases of treason and war crimes. Amir struck a direct blow to Israel's security but was sentenced to multiple lives in prison, not capital punishment. He was guaranteed the human right to survive. Now he has been guaranteed the human right to procreate,
In a legal world of pick and choose, under which universal umbrella of human rights are these rights protected?
(High Court quotes from Haaretz)
Amir's smuggling attempt breached a High Court injunction prohibiting him from using in-vitro fertilization to impregnate his wife. Israel Prison Service had approved them for the procedure in March, but the court halted the proceedings after two former members of knesset petitioned to deny Amir the right to bear children.
In repayment, the High Court on Monday rejected their petition, and said although Amir "was and still is one of the most denounced criminals in Israeli national consciousness of recent generations, if not the most denounced of all," he nevertheless "has, as any other prisoner, basic human rights, from which he was not stripped upon entering the prison."
In a "proper constitutional regime," said the justices, "the human rights umbrella protects a person insofar as he is a person, including an imprisoned criminal."
The court ruled that "the considerations seeking to worsen the conditions of his imprisonment because of the severity of his crime, or to limit his human rights in revenge for his deeds, are not relevant and therefore invalid."
When would it be considered relevant and valid to limit a prisoner's human rights as punishment for the severity of his or her crime or deeds?
In legal systems that employ capital punishment, the convicted is denied the basic human right to survive. Thirty-eight out of 50 of the United States employ capital punishment. Israel, technically, does not have a death penalty, except in certain cases of war crimes or treason. It used it once, executing Adolph Eichmann for war crimes committed not geographically in Israel, but against members of the Jewish nation. The United States has a constitution of rights. Israel, technically, does not.
Yigal Amir used murder to fight a national process for peace and security. Israel condones the death penalty in certain cases of treason and war crimes. Amir struck a direct blow to Israel's security but was sentenced to multiple lives in prison, not capital punishment. He was guaranteed the human right to survive. Now he has been guaranteed the human right to procreate,
In a legal world of pick and choose, under which universal umbrella of human rights are these rights protected?
(High Court quotes from Haaretz)
Thursday, June 08, 2006
cafe hafuch
Haaretz writes,
The Musawa Center for Arab Rights in Israel on Wednesday submitted a complaint to the Trade and Labor Ministry charging that the Arcaffe chain discriminates against Arabs in its hiring policies.
Some 50 protesters also demonstrated Wednesday evening outside a Tel Aviv branch of the cafe.
A recent Army Radio investigation found that Nazareth student Wasim Kanaza was refused employment at three separate Arcaffe branches while reporter David Glick was hired using a resume similar to Kanaza's.
Musawa receives numerous complaints of employers discriminating against Arabs, but in most cases it is difficult for the group to prove that systemic discrimination or racism is involved.
The line between systemic discrimination and security is choking. There is no lack of justification for clear violations of civil rights. Historical precedent and fears have superceded human right and decency.
The reactions that come to mind, and their equally weighted justifications, are confounding. From indignation at this blatant national discrimination, an institution basing its hiring policies on ethnic favoritism and elitism, comes a clear understanding of proponent justification.
Fear is the justification. Inexcusable discrimination for a cause. It's a security measure, drawing flashbacks of numerous inside employees or acquaintances helping or architecting an attack.
Arcaffe denies that its hiring policies are based on race, creed, sexality, religion or anything other than ability.
Israelis don't like to call themselves discriminatory, though Israel's critics would say otherwise. Does that make me a critic of Israel? Israelis live in a world measured by our nation's relationship to others. There's the original divine appointment of Jews as chosen people, and there is the modern permeation of Israeli Jews feeling different from, if not superior to, the Arabs living here both as citizens and as outlaws.
This cultural relativism is duly based on Israelis' recognition of Israel's unofficial and unconstitutional designation of its Arab sector as second-class, and on the inherent fear of a people under threat of attack whose neighbors are related to their oppressors. Both Palestinians and Israelis claim to be on the defensive, and it is the middle-man who bears the brunt.
Israeli Arabs are citizens with equal rights who have been served a rotten meal on a silver platter. They took on citizenship instead of refugee camps and were told that, according to democracy, they could freely practice their own religions and speak their own language.
They were given the right to run their own municipal authorities and run for a seat in federal parliament. They were given the right to control their own schools and facilities, and pay taxes and receive social benefits.
They were not given the right, at least in recent years, to see their families who chose differently. They were not given a high spot on the Knesset's lists of priorities. They were not given the right to feel like a desired part of Israeli nationalism.
Arab politicians cannot oppose Israel's national self-designation as Zionist and with a Jewish majority. They cannot identify with the Palestinian cause. There are legal repercussions for breaking this rule, like eviction from politics, detainment, and interrogation, and illegal repercussion such as threats from people like MK Avigdor Lieberman who calls for the execution of any Arabs MK who support Palestinians.
Arabs who live in the state of Israel agree to observe a status quo whereby they respect Israel's national character and abide by the laws as any other citizen, and in return they are granted full rights as citizens of a developed, western nation. Israeli Arabs who collaborate with Palestinians or amongst themselves to attack Israel break their end of the deal. Israeli Jews and governments who unofficially and unconstitutionally demote Arabs to second-class citizens break theirs.
The average Israeli Arab, like the average Israeli Jew and the average Palestinian, is a person trying to live his or her life with joy, comfort and a sense of achievement. Israeli Arabs took a much better deal than Palestinians, in that they are able to live as free citizens. In return, they are forced to live as second-class citizens under a state which wasn't their first choice and is now their rightful home.
The Musawa Center for Arab Rights in Israel on Wednesday submitted a complaint to the Trade and Labor Ministry charging that the Arcaffe chain discriminates against Arabs in its hiring policies.
Some 50 protesters also demonstrated Wednesday evening outside a Tel Aviv branch of the cafe.
A recent Army Radio investigation found that Nazareth student Wasim Kanaza was refused employment at three separate Arcaffe branches while reporter David Glick was hired using a resume similar to Kanaza's.
Musawa receives numerous complaints of employers discriminating against Arabs, but in most cases it is difficult for the group to prove that systemic discrimination or racism is involved.
The line between systemic discrimination and security is choking. There is no lack of justification for clear violations of civil rights. Historical precedent and fears have superceded human right and decency.
The reactions that come to mind, and their equally weighted justifications, are confounding. From indignation at this blatant national discrimination, an institution basing its hiring policies on ethnic favoritism and elitism, comes a clear understanding of proponent justification.
Fear is the justification. Inexcusable discrimination for a cause. It's a security measure, drawing flashbacks of numerous inside employees or acquaintances helping or architecting an attack.
Arcaffe denies that its hiring policies are based on race, creed, sexality, religion or anything other than ability.
Israelis don't like to call themselves discriminatory, though Israel's critics would say otherwise. Does that make me a critic of Israel? Israelis live in a world measured by our nation's relationship to others. There's the original divine appointment of Jews as chosen people, and there is the modern permeation of Israeli Jews feeling different from, if not superior to, the Arabs living here both as citizens and as outlaws.
This cultural relativism is duly based on Israelis' recognition of Israel's unofficial and unconstitutional designation of its Arab sector as second-class, and on the inherent fear of a people under threat of attack whose neighbors are related to their oppressors. Both Palestinians and Israelis claim to be on the defensive, and it is the middle-man who bears the brunt.
Israeli Arabs are citizens with equal rights who have been served a rotten meal on a silver platter. They took on citizenship instead of refugee camps and were told that, according to democracy, they could freely practice their own religions and speak their own language.
They were given the right to run their own municipal authorities and run for a seat in federal parliament. They were given the right to control their own schools and facilities, and pay taxes and receive social benefits.
They were not given the right, at least in recent years, to see their families who chose differently. They were not given a high spot on the Knesset's lists of priorities. They were not given the right to feel like a desired part of Israeli nationalism.
Arab politicians cannot oppose Israel's national self-designation as Zionist and with a Jewish majority. They cannot identify with the Palestinian cause. There are legal repercussions for breaking this rule, like eviction from politics, detainment, and interrogation, and illegal repercussion such as threats from people like MK Avigdor Lieberman who calls for the execution of any Arabs MK who support Palestinians.
Arabs who live in the state of Israel agree to observe a status quo whereby they respect Israel's national character and abide by the laws as any other citizen, and in return they are granted full rights as citizens of a developed, western nation. Israeli Arabs who collaborate with Palestinians or amongst themselves to attack Israel break their end of the deal. Israeli Jews and governments who unofficially and unconstitutionally demote Arabs to second-class citizens break theirs.
The average Israeli Arab, like the average Israeli Jew and the average Palestinian, is a person trying to live his or her life with joy, comfort and a sense of achievement. Israeli Arabs took a much better deal than Palestinians, in that they are able to live as free citizens. In return, they are forced to live as second-class citizens under a state which wasn't their first choice and is now their rightful home.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
when kosher pigs fly...
There's either revolution or national suicide brewing in the Palestinian Authority. In the midst of an ensuing humanitarian crisis stemming from lack of aid and an only recent promise by Palestinian banks to pay government workers their long-delayed salaries, as a war of identity and land claims with Israel rages and a civil war between Fatah and Hamas escalates, Mahmoud Abbas has decided to show who's boss. He delivered an ultimatum to Hamas a few weeks ago, telling the ruling party either to accept a plan drafted by imprisoned Fatah men calling for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, or get ready for a national referendum on the issue.
Hamas refused. Abbas told them they had until midnight June 5 to make their choice. Hamas refused. Abbas held a 70-minute phone conversation with Haniyeh, and at the stroke of midnight, declared that talks had failed, and he was preparing within 48 hours to call a referendum. Hamas said it still wanted to talk.
A referendum is expected now for sometime in July. A useless referendum in practical terms that can achieve nothing but vainly demonstrate Palestinian opinion in a rigid Hamas system and flaunt worthless Fatah muscle. No matter the outcome, the Palestinian people cannot determine the borders of their own state without full agreement from Israel, or without the approval of the Hamas government.
It is a contradiction in democracy. Hamas won because the Palestinian people were fed up with Fatah's corruption, but their victory was further indicative of the general Palestinian desperation and approach to the conflict that rules their life. The Palestinian public voted for a party which holds as its mandate the destruction of Israel, the refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist. The Palestinian people are entitled, and encouraged, to exercise their voice and change their approach by voting for a state based on 1967 borders. But there is no way to ensure that the results of such a referendum could be implemented as long as Hamas remains in power and refuses to give up the mission statement which won it its mandate in the Palestinian parliament.
Hamas refused. Abbas told them they had until midnight June 5 to make their choice. Hamas refused. Abbas held a 70-minute phone conversation with Haniyeh, and at the stroke of midnight, declared that talks had failed, and he was preparing within 48 hours to call a referendum. Hamas said it still wanted to talk.
A referendum is expected now for sometime in July. A useless referendum in practical terms that can achieve nothing but vainly demonstrate Palestinian opinion in a rigid Hamas system and flaunt worthless Fatah muscle. No matter the outcome, the Palestinian people cannot determine the borders of their own state without full agreement from Israel, or without the approval of the Hamas government.
It is a contradiction in democracy. Hamas won because the Palestinian people were fed up with Fatah's corruption, but their victory was further indicative of the general Palestinian desperation and approach to the conflict that rules their life. The Palestinian public voted for a party which holds as its mandate the destruction of Israel, the refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist. The Palestinian people are entitled, and encouraged, to exercise their voice and change their approach by voting for a state based on 1967 borders. But there is no way to ensure that the results of such a referendum could be implemented as long as Hamas remains in power and refuses to give up the mission statement which won it its mandate in the Palestinian parliament.
ah, personal freedom
The Associated Press writes,
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state of Alaska Monday over a new law penalizing marijuana possession for personal use in the home.
The civil liberties group alleges the new law is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
"Is marijuana so dangerous that it justifies restricting a fundamental right? The state thinks it's yes, we think it's no," said Michael Macleod-Ball, executive director of the ACLU of Alaska.
The lawsuit also claims the law allows prosecution of people who use marijuana for medical purposes, which the Alaska Department of Law disputes.
Along with the lawsuit, the ACLU is asking a Juneau Superior Court judge to block the law. Macleod-Ball said a judge set a Thursday hearing on a temporary restraining order.
The law, which was signed by Gov. Frank Murkowski on Friday, is an attempt to reverse a 30-year-old Alaska Supreme Court decision in which the court ruled the privacy rights of Alaskans trumped the harm the drug could cause.
Later court decisions set a legal limit of 4 ounces (113 grams) that an individual can keep in the home.
Murkowski for the past two years has been pushing through a bill to counter that ruling, understanding that the final decision would be up to the courts.
Under the new law, pot possession of 4 ounces (113 grams) or more is a felony, with possession of amounts less than that is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
"The issue of marijuana appears destined to be resolved by the courts," said Department of Law spokesman Mark Morones. "Now that there's some science behind it, we know a lot more about it now and its potency now than when the Ravin decision was decided."
Gearing up for the court fight, Murkowski and the Legislature included in the bill a set of findings meant to prove that marijuana has increased in potency since the original Supreme Court decision, and therefore has become more dangerous.
Joining the ACLU as a plaintiff is an anonymous 54-year-old woman referred to as Jane Doe who uses marijuana to treat pain caused by a neurological illness called reflex sympathetic dystrophy, according to the lawsuit.
She and another plaintiff, a 42-year-old woman referred to as Jane Roe, will not list their real names because they fear criminal prosecution under the new law, the lawsuit says.
Jane Doe and the ACLU claim there is no exception under the new law for medical marijuana patients. Morones said medical marijuana users are protected under the new law and will not be affected.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state of Alaska Monday over a new law penalizing marijuana possession for personal use in the home.
The civil liberties group alleges the new law is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
"Is marijuana so dangerous that it justifies restricting a fundamental right? The state thinks it's yes, we think it's no," said Michael Macleod-Ball, executive director of the ACLU of Alaska.
The lawsuit also claims the law allows prosecution of people who use marijuana for medical purposes, which the Alaska Department of Law disputes.
Along with the lawsuit, the ACLU is asking a Juneau Superior Court judge to block the law. Macleod-Ball said a judge set a Thursday hearing on a temporary restraining order.
The law, which was signed by Gov. Frank Murkowski on Friday, is an attempt to reverse a 30-year-old Alaska Supreme Court decision in which the court ruled the privacy rights of Alaskans trumped the harm the drug could cause.
Later court decisions set a legal limit of 4 ounces (113 grams) that an individual can keep in the home.
Murkowski for the past two years has been pushing through a bill to counter that ruling, understanding that the final decision would be up to the courts.
Under the new law, pot possession of 4 ounces (113 grams) or more is a felony, with possession of amounts less than that is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
"The issue of marijuana appears destined to be resolved by the courts," said Department of Law spokesman Mark Morones. "Now that there's some science behind it, we know a lot more about it now and its potency now than when the Ravin decision was decided."
Gearing up for the court fight, Murkowski and the Legislature included in the bill a set of findings meant to prove that marijuana has increased in potency since the original Supreme Court decision, and therefore has become more dangerous.
Joining the ACLU as a plaintiff is an anonymous 54-year-old woman referred to as Jane Doe who uses marijuana to treat pain caused by a neurological illness called reflex sympathetic dystrophy, according to the lawsuit.
She and another plaintiff, a 42-year-old woman referred to as Jane Roe, will not list their real names because they fear criminal prosecution under the new law, the lawsuit says.
Jane Doe and the ACLU claim there is no exception under the new law for medical marijuana patients. Morones said medical marijuana users are protected under the new law and will not be affected.
Monday, May 29, 2006
balancing in sweet purgatory
I walked into the bunker of death two days after I went to heaven.
Shoshana and Micha are the caretakers of heaven, and there's no place like it on earth. They have a harp store, which used to be in the same hidden narrow alley as my aunt and uncle's jewlery shop in Jerusalem, and is now at the bottom of the hill where they live. The house is set low into the hill, the front gate lush green trees hiding stone staircase leading down to the wooden cabin, down further to homemade sauna and swimming hole, garden. My friends like to go there to work in the garden during the day and completely unwind at night. This time, I only went there for the unwinding part.
It was another insane week at work, like these weeks are, and I had three days off to be free. I woke up the first morning of freedom with a really deep cough, but went to Jerusalem anyway. Some friends and I had talked about going up to Shoshana and Micha's the week before, and then forgotten, but somehow after I decided to go anyway, I found out five more of my friends had the same idea.
We got there late, and the women went down right away, armed with water bottles and towels. Shoshana was standing there, completely nude. 'Nice to meet you,' she said to some of us. She went off to get something, and the rest of us got naked and walked into the sweat.
It was a small wooden structure with a wood stove outside and a basket of coal inside, dark except for the candles, lit also by oil and sweat. The top bench was the hottest. I sat on top, dripping and breathing out my toxins. I tried to stay in as long as I could. I made it for about twenty minutes each time, four times. In between each, we ran out and jumped straight into the cold swimming hole. The contrast of heat and cold went so drastically to my head, my mind spinning out of control (otherwise sober) and I felt like I was walking on the moon. I went back in. Then back to the water. Back to the sauna. Back to the water. We were mermaids in space.
Micha and Shoshana have a great house, filled with art and instruments, good smells and herbs. We jammed on different drums, a sax, guitar and something resembling a wooden xylophone.
Shoshana told us about her dream, which she had ten years ago, in which she saw the dome of the rock burst into gold and blue petals, making way for the temple to grow directly from within it. In her dream, she was at the wailing wall with thousands of people praying intently, and when she looked up, she saw the shrine break into pieces and the temple push through. She tried to say something to those around her, but she couldn't find the words, she was in shock. She watched the whole transformation, alone. When it finished, everybody looked up, oblivious to the change that had taken place while they were praying.
I didn't actually walk into the bunker of death a couple day later, but stuck my head in for about thirty seconds before feeling completely swallowed by the smell of human waste emanating from inside.
It was Saturday, and we had just eaten lunch and cake and
decided to go for a walk in the hills around elisha's moshav a lovely beautiful place full of magic sienna was tired and cosmos had lots of energy we wandered and walked and when we got to the bunker elisha said it was from the 1948 war i said who's going in with me nobody would i took a deep breath stuck my head in and felt death wash over me it stunk of human i thought maybe from the people who use it as shelter now or maybe from the screams and rifles and war and death curse panging me now forever never couldn't be i decided must be the elements
Shoshana and Micha are the caretakers of heaven, and there's no place like it on earth. They have a harp store, which used to be in the same hidden narrow alley as my aunt and uncle's jewlery shop in Jerusalem, and is now at the bottom of the hill where they live. The house is set low into the hill, the front gate lush green trees hiding stone staircase leading down to the wooden cabin, down further to homemade sauna and swimming hole, garden. My friends like to go there to work in the garden during the day and completely unwind at night. This time, I only went there for the unwinding part.
It was another insane week at work, like these weeks are, and I had three days off to be free. I woke up the first morning of freedom with a really deep cough, but went to Jerusalem anyway. Some friends and I had talked about going up to Shoshana and Micha's the week before, and then forgotten, but somehow after I decided to go anyway, I found out five more of my friends had the same idea.
We got there late, and the women went down right away, armed with water bottles and towels. Shoshana was standing there, completely nude. 'Nice to meet you,' she said to some of us. She went off to get something, and the rest of us got naked and walked into the sweat.
It was a small wooden structure with a wood stove outside and a basket of coal inside, dark except for the candles, lit also by oil and sweat. The top bench was the hottest. I sat on top, dripping and breathing out my toxins. I tried to stay in as long as I could. I made it for about twenty minutes each time, four times. In between each, we ran out and jumped straight into the cold swimming hole. The contrast of heat and cold went so drastically to my head, my mind spinning out of control (otherwise sober) and I felt like I was walking on the moon. I went back in. Then back to the water. Back to the sauna. Back to the water. We were mermaids in space.
Micha and Shoshana have a great house, filled with art and instruments, good smells and herbs. We jammed on different drums, a sax, guitar and something resembling a wooden xylophone.
Shoshana told us about her dream, which she had ten years ago, in which she saw the dome of the rock burst into gold and blue petals, making way for the temple to grow directly from within it. In her dream, she was at the wailing wall with thousands of people praying intently, and when she looked up, she saw the shrine break into pieces and the temple push through. She tried to say something to those around her, but she couldn't find the words, she was in shock. She watched the whole transformation, alone. When it finished, everybody looked up, oblivious to the change that had taken place while they were praying.
I didn't actually walk into the bunker of death a couple day later, but stuck my head in for about thirty seconds before feeling completely swallowed by the smell of human waste emanating from inside.
It was Saturday, and we had just eaten lunch and cake and
decided to go for a walk in the hills around elisha's moshav a lovely beautiful place full of magic sienna was tired and cosmos had lots of energy we wandered and walked and when we got to the bunker elisha said it was from the 1948 war i said who's going in with me nobody would i took a deep breath stuck my head in and felt death wash over me it stunk of human i thought maybe from the people who use it as shelter now or maybe from the screams and rifles and war and death curse panging me now forever never couldn't be i decided must be the elements
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
pinning a spinning wheel
Olmert's speech to congress was nearly perfect. I was impressed. I had to stay late at work the night before to cover the press conference he held with Bush after their first meeting at the White House, so I was expecting a little more of the same.
He was nervous at Tuesday night's press conference. They both were. Bush slammed out another winning analysis when, following his statement on how conflicts can be resolved through negotiations on both sides, he thoughtfully looked up and drawled, "the only problem is that Hamas [pause] doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist."
Here were two of the strongest leaders in the world talking about peace, and negotiations, with Olmert even promising a state in 3 or 4 years, and not four hours earlier the House of Representatives ruled in a sweeping vote of 361 to 37 to choke as severely as possible any aid flow into the Palestinian territories, while in Europe, the rest of the western powers were working out a plan to funnel aid to the Palestinian people without feeding Hamas.
Olmert's address to congress was smooth. He had pizzaz. He said all the right things to appease all sides, and piss off all sides, and painted himself as Sharon's heir, the hardened Israeli prime minister who's seen it all, loves his people, and of course, is concerned about the plight of his neighbors.
To the same House of Representatives that voted to further limit aid to Palestinian, Olmert said, "the Palestinians will forever be our neighbors. They are an inseparable part of this land, as are we. Israel has not desired to rule over them, nor to oppress them. They, too, have a right for freedom and national aspirations."
Right for freedom and national aspirations. In a non-state with a crumbled infra-structure, constant in-fighting and near starvation in cramped refugee camps, obsessed with the idea of their national pride, their homeland, and their struggle. A struggle inherent to Israel's struggle, its freedom and national aspirations.
Like elections, it's impossible to take Olmert at his word. He is not the hardened Israeli general turned prime minister of the past. He is the former disappointing mayor of Jerusalem, the former deputy prime minister everybody held at arm's length. He is riding on the victory of a man who died at the prime of his career, a prime 180 degrees away from where he promised he would be during his own corrupt election campaigns.
A friend of mine on a three-week leadership program in Israel told me that the one thing he's gotten out of his trip is the realization that no solution is possible in this conflict. Interesting because when he asked me what I've gotten out of my work this year, the first thing that came to mind was the realization that a solution is completely possible. Despite all the variables, including the temperments of our leaders.
Abbas proposed, and Hamas rejected, an idea to pose a referendum to Palestinians on whether to accept a state based on the 1967 borders. It was a strange propasal and an obvious reaction from Hamas. Such a referendum is meaningless. A Palestinian referendum on the borders of its state would by nature be a referendum on the borders of Israel's state, and in this conflict, neither entity can unilaterally determine the borders of another state.
A solution is possible. Maybe a temporary solution, like the others, to tide us over a few years, or even decades, before the next war. But there won't be a solution as long as each side refuses to compromise. We've heard this before. If Palestinians will agree only to a state set at 1967 borders and Israel will agree only to withdrawal as long as it does not require retreating to exact 1967 borders, then the current situation will persist. In the meantime, Israel's promise to withdraw becomes more generous by the offer, and the Palestinian vow not to recognize Israel becomes weaker by its offers. In the next five years there will be a Palestinian state, but the solution can be furthered only if Israel agrees simultaneously to set its borders.
He was nervous at Tuesday night's press conference. They both were. Bush slammed out another winning analysis when, following his statement on how conflicts can be resolved through negotiations on both sides, he thoughtfully looked up and drawled, "the only problem is that Hamas [pause] doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist."
Here were two of the strongest leaders in the world talking about peace, and negotiations, with Olmert even promising a state in 3 or 4 years, and not four hours earlier the House of Representatives ruled in a sweeping vote of 361 to 37 to choke as severely as possible any aid flow into the Palestinian territories, while in Europe, the rest of the western powers were working out a plan to funnel aid to the Palestinian people without feeding Hamas.
Olmert's address to congress was smooth. He had pizzaz. He said all the right things to appease all sides, and piss off all sides, and painted himself as Sharon's heir, the hardened Israeli prime minister who's seen it all, loves his people, and of course, is concerned about the plight of his neighbors.
To the same House of Representatives that voted to further limit aid to Palestinian, Olmert said, "the Palestinians will forever be our neighbors. They are an inseparable part of this land, as are we. Israel has not desired to rule over them, nor to oppress them. They, too, have a right for freedom and national aspirations."
Right for freedom and national aspirations. In a non-state with a crumbled infra-structure, constant in-fighting and near starvation in cramped refugee camps, obsessed with the idea of their national pride, their homeland, and their struggle. A struggle inherent to Israel's struggle, its freedom and national aspirations.
Like elections, it's impossible to take Olmert at his word. He is not the hardened Israeli general turned prime minister of the past. He is the former disappointing mayor of Jerusalem, the former deputy prime minister everybody held at arm's length. He is riding on the victory of a man who died at the prime of his career, a prime 180 degrees away from where he promised he would be during his own corrupt election campaigns.
A friend of mine on a three-week leadership program in Israel told me that the one thing he's gotten out of his trip is the realization that no solution is possible in this conflict. Interesting because when he asked me what I've gotten out of my work this year, the first thing that came to mind was the realization that a solution is completely possible. Despite all the variables, including the temperments of our leaders.
Abbas proposed, and Hamas rejected, an idea to pose a referendum to Palestinians on whether to accept a state based on the 1967 borders. It was a strange propasal and an obvious reaction from Hamas. Such a referendum is meaningless. A Palestinian referendum on the borders of its state would by nature be a referendum on the borders of Israel's state, and in this conflict, neither entity can unilaterally determine the borders of another state.
A solution is possible. Maybe a temporary solution, like the others, to tide us over a few years, or even decades, before the next war. But there won't be a solution as long as each side refuses to compromise. We've heard this before. If Palestinians will agree only to a state set at 1967 borders and Israel will agree only to withdrawal as long as it does not require retreating to exact 1967 borders, then the current situation will persist. In the meantime, Israel's promise to withdraw becomes more generous by the offer, and the Palestinian vow not to recognize Israel becomes weaker by its offers. In the next five years there will be a Palestinian state, but the solution can be furthered only if Israel agrees simultaneously to set its borders.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
dawning of the age
Max went to Africa today, so we had another long weekend hafla all together in Jerusalem. The community that's grown together that I've been a part of this last year has been so amazing. There's really no other way to describe it. We came together last fall at the rainbow gathering, some people we'd known before, some friends of friends, lots of travelers and passers-by, a new generation taking over Nahlaot in Jerusalem, its narrow stone alleyways and cave-like houses, its teachers and its laundromats. It's a transient community of people who touch down on each other for a few weeks or months or years, then stay or go, and find a path. I spend almost every weekend with these people and these places. Its a big part of home.
The apartment where yoni lis used to live and then hillel moved in with ami and the other ami and then max when hillel left is the hub. At least it was before the lice, and now Max is gone, but the energy is still there. It's the door in the middle of Nahlaot's main 'street' that's literally almost always open and inside there's an extra person sleeping and so many more eating or cooking or playing music. Adina, the Queen of Nahlaot, singing and whimpering and giggling, and someone walking her home, and Ezra mopping and laughing, and Ami making chai or cooking or eating or learning or playing guitar, Devora smiling, and Max moving to rythm, barefoot,and then Jackie, and Elisha somewhere, and Meir Chaim somewhere, and eveyone stopping in or staying. Then there's the anonymous guy sitting cross-legged on the bench on Be'er Sheva who tells you to look above the door for the key when you were looking nonchalantly in the tree, and the tourists.
Both of my mother's brothers and their wives and kids live in Nahlaot, in the same Nahlaot but more settled and less touched by fairydust. My sister also lives there, with her husband, but they've been in India for the last few months. During the winter, I was in Jerusalem at least three days a week. Now that it's summer, it feels even more like a utopic shtetl, the center of the world, from a certain angle.
Ironically, the only thing weakening paradise is the product of its creation, its transience. That is its beating heart, its allure, its rejuvenating character. For the last half year, everything fit into place. Two of my oldest friends, and a good friend of one of them, and that new friend's girlfriend, and then another of their friends who ended up with the female of my two oldest friends, and a new friend who I grew up with, and an old sporadic friend, and others who I'd mention but this sentence is too long, and the tel aviv family, became my closest. And there were always more people around. And there has always been food, and a place to stay, and someone to talk to, and freedom and flow and comfort. Sometimes we go to the woods or to a festival or to a farm and sometimes we spill onto someone else's house.
It's like college or camp but more ambiguous. Everyone is doing something similar and everyone is doing something different, and some of us work, and some don't, but it works, and we're family, and people leave and new people come and some people stay and become the world to each other. Already people are going, and still in a few weeks or months, and again next year. It feels like everything is on the brink of change, but it's always been changing. When Max left he told me that I was the mama and had to hold down the fort. There are other mamas around, and more will be back at some point, and then I'll be gone, and then a new generation.
The apartment where yoni lis used to live and then hillel moved in with ami and the other ami and then max when hillel left is the hub. At least it was before the lice, and now Max is gone, but the energy is still there. It's the door in the middle of Nahlaot's main 'street' that's literally almost always open and inside there's an extra person sleeping and so many more eating or cooking or playing music. Adina, the Queen of Nahlaot, singing and whimpering and giggling, and someone walking her home, and Ezra mopping and laughing, and Ami making chai or cooking or eating or learning or playing guitar, Devora smiling, and Max moving to rythm, barefoot,and then Jackie, and Elisha somewhere, and Meir Chaim somewhere, and eveyone stopping in or staying. Then there's the anonymous guy sitting cross-legged on the bench on Be'er Sheva who tells you to look above the door for the key when you were looking nonchalantly in the tree, and the tourists.
Both of my mother's brothers and their wives and kids live in Nahlaot, in the same Nahlaot but more settled and less touched by fairydust. My sister also lives there, with her husband, but they've been in India for the last few months. During the winter, I was in Jerusalem at least three days a week. Now that it's summer, it feels even more like a utopic shtetl, the center of the world, from a certain angle.
Ironically, the only thing weakening paradise is the product of its creation, its transience. That is its beating heart, its allure, its rejuvenating character. For the last half year, everything fit into place. Two of my oldest friends, and a good friend of one of them, and that new friend's girlfriend, and then another of their friends who ended up with the female of my two oldest friends, and a new friend who I grew up with, and an old sporadic friend, and others who I'd mention but this sentence is too long, and the tel aviv family, became my closest. And there were always more people around. And there has always been food, and a place to stay, and someone to talk to, and freedom and flow and comfort. Sometimes we go to the woods or to a festival or to a farm and sometimes we spill onto someone else's house.
It's like college or camp but more ambiguous. Everyone is doing something similar and everyone is doing something different, and some of us work, and some don't, but it works, and we're family, and people leave and new people come and some people stay and become the world to each other. Already people are going, and still in a few weeks or months, and again next year. It feels like everything is on the brink of change, but it's always been changing. When Max left he told me that I was the mama and had to hold down the fort. There are other mamas around, and more will be back at some point, and then I'll be gone, and then a new generation.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
life, death and, blah
There were probably a million things I could have written about in the last week, but I kept holding myself back. It's spring, and it's a time of birth and freedom, I can appreciate that, but it also feels like the end of an era, overburdened by change and worry and departures and distance and change. I don't know if my thoughts about all this have been negative or regressive or positive and a learning experience - but I wanted to avoid writing another tirade about death, war and the good hiding in the world.
I kept putting off writing about the deaths of the two people critically wounded in last month's bombing in Tel Aviv. Both were young and sons and died of organ failure. I took the news pretty hard. My instinct when I heard about the first was that the second had died also. He did, the next day.
I hear about people I don't know dying every day, but for some reason, this one hit hard. Maybe it's that everything seems to be exploding around me, figuratively, or maybe it was because it all hit so close to home, literally, down the street, and in so many other ways. The last few weeks have felt so transitory and transformative to me, that the news of of two more people whose lives and families and everything around them changed in a split-second was a lot to handle.
I'm in my own absorbed reality, much less tragic, thinking about how insane, and deaf, I am going from construction now at all sides of me starting before dawn, thinking about the amazing community I've been part of that's already in the process of morphing with time and the nature of things, thinking about emotional labor, and caring for friends, and the balance between selfishness and selflessness, thinking about the importance of sleep and the importance of adventure and the importance of love and the importance of happiness, thinking about my family, and my work, and joie de vivre. It's absorbed and it's not so tragic, but it's another reminder that life is not static.
I got a ride with my boss on Monday to outside of Jerusalem, planning to meet up with friends in the city and hitchhike together to Meron for Lag Ba'omer, traditionally the 33rd day counting down to the end of the grain harvest and the giving of the torah, and in the hasidic world, the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, author of the Zohar, who is buried in a huge tomb at the top of the mountain. I wasn't sure I wanted to go. I went for Lag Ba'omer five years ago, and hated it, feeling very out of place, and very small and sticky and debaucherous. But I figured I'd be with great friends, and we could spend the whole time camping in the forest.
When I got to Jerusalem, nobody was ready to go. It took five hours of eating and playing music before we got on the road, and then we were 12. We stayed a group walking through the empty market, to the street, to the bus stop, to the random junction where every ten minutes another five buses pulled up, and another hundreds after hundreds of haredi men, wives, sons and daughters, and dozens of hippies, pushed their way on. Lots of screaming, lots of shoving, and one woman who gave me a dirty look and slapped my arm when I made a noise she said wasn't modest. We waited almost two hours for a bus. Then we reconsidered.
Four of us went on. I stayed in Jerusalem. We broke down again into two groups, one went to learn zohar and the rest of us went to make a bonfire and play music in the park. The apocalypse that had hit the park on Independence Day was back, this time in the form of hundreds of groups of high school kids eating meat and gleefully building enormous fires. We went back into the forest, and ended up sleeping there until late morning. It wasn't exactly what I had planned, but it was nice.
I keep learning, over and over to stop planning. Things change whether we plan them or not. We're much more susceptible to great surprises when we're not so busy feeling disappointed at unfulfilled dreams.
The park looked destroyed when we came down from our site. I wondered who was going to clean it. We decided to pick up some garbage, and ended up attacking three sites. We scored some ketchup and unopened bags of about 40 fresh pitas. I needed to get out of the city and go be lazy somewhere in nature. It took some time but at around 2:30 we made it to the bus station. Then we waited some more, until I made everyone get on a bus that was going close to where we wanted, if not exactly, because I so much prefered to be sitting on a bus riding through the Jerusalem hills to a random spot than sitting in front of the bus station waiting.
So we did, and the day was awesome. We went to a collective community called Evan Sapir, set on a cliff in the middle of the forest. We found a great tree cave and a natural pools carved into stone, and a handmade wooden sweatlodge, and lots of green and quiet. We sat around for six or seven hours, but this time we weren't waiting.
I tried to avoid writing this post because I didn't want to write about death again, and I didn't want to come up with some feel-good analysis of how to keep these things from breaking us down, or give some moral guide to reorganizing tragedy to build ourselves up. But it's unavoidable.
Usually, when I hear about deaths, I can do that moral guide thing, I can distance myself enough to understand the loss on some level, and use it on other levels to recognize the lesson learned to love life and make the most of every second. You never know when things are going to change. Man makes plans and god laughs. Be ready for change. Be ready for tragedy, be open to its invigorating elements.
But I don't think I succeeded in doing that that with the news of these deaths. I know about change, and I know how to look at the positive elements of tragedy, but sometimes we just want to mourn, not necessarily use the opportunity to boost our own morale and price of life. Even when we don't know the victim personally, recognizing their name, hearing about them in such detail, seeing their families crying and knowing, feeling, the desperation they must be going through, being familiar with the exact place they were injured and having been there numerous times, being familiar with the kind of community they come from, the kind of life they lived, makes it too difficult sometimes to be ready to pick ourselves up and find the feel-good moral of the story. Even if we get to spend a day lazing around in nature and feeling alive.
I kept putting off writing about the deaths of the two people critically wounded in last month's bombing in Tel Aviv. Both were young and sons and died of organ failure. I took the news pretty hard. My instinct when I heard about the first was that the second had died also. He did, the next day.
I hear about people I don't know dying every day, but for some reason, this one hit hard. Maybe it's that everything seems to be exploding around me, figuratively, or maybe it was because it all hit so close to home, literally, down the street, and in so many other ways. The last few weeks have felt so transitory and transformative to me, that the news of of two more people whose lives and families and everything around them changed in a split-second was a lot to handle.
I'm in my own absorbed reality, much less tragic, thinking about how insane, and deaf, I am going from construction now at all sides of me starting before dawn, thinking about the amazing community I've been part of that's already in the process of morphing with time and the nature of things, thinking about emotional labor, and caring for friends, and the balance between selfishness and selflessness, thinking about the importance of sleep and the importance of adventure and the importance of love and the importance of happiness, thinking about my family, and my work, and joie de vivre. It's absorbed and it's not so tragic, but it's another reminder that life is not static.
I got a ride with my boss on Monday to outside of Jerusalem, planning to meet up with friends in the city and hitchhike together to Meron for Lag Ba'omer, traditionally the 33rd day counting down to the end of the grain harvest and the giving of the torah, and in the hasidic world, the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, author of the Zohar, who is buried in a huge tomb at the top of the mountain. I wasn't sure I wanted to go. I went for Lag Ba'omer five years ago, and hated it, feeling very out of place, and very small and sticky and debaucherous. But I figured I'd be with great friends, and we could spend the whole time camping in the forest.
When I got to Jerusalem, nobody was ready to go. It took five hours of eating and playing music before we got on the road, and then we were 12. We stayed a group walking through the empty market, to the street, to the bus stop, to the random junction where every ten minutes another five buses pulled up, and another hundreds after hundreds of haredi men, wives, sons and daughters, and dozens of hippies, pushed their way on. Lots of screaming, lots of shoving, and one woman who gave me a dirty look and slapped my arm when I made a noise she said wasn't modest. We waited almost two hours for a bus. Then we reconsidered.
Four of us went on. I stayed in Jerusalem. We broke down again into two groups, one went to learn zohar and the rest of us went to make a bonfire and play music in the park. The apocalypse that had hit the park on Independence Day was back, this time in the form of hundreds of groups of high school kids eating meat and gleefully building enormous fires. We went back into the forest, and ended up sleeping there until late morning. It wasn't exactly what I had planned, but it was nice.
I keep learning, over and over to stop planning. Things change whether we plan them or not. We're much more susceptible to great surprises when we're not so busy feeling disappointed at unfulfilled dreams.
The park looked destroyed when we came down from our site. I wondered who was going to clean it. We decided to pick up some garbage, and ended up attacking three sites. We scored some ketchup and unopened bags of about 40 fresh pitas. I needed to get out of the city and go be lazy somewhere in nature. It took some time but at around 2:30 we made it to the bus station. Then we waited some more, until I made everyone get on a bus that was going close to where we wanted, if not exactly, because I so much prefered to be sitting on a bus riding through the Jerusalem hills to a random spot than sitting in front of the bus station waiting.
So we did, and the day was awesome. We went to a collective community called Evan Sapir, set on a cliff in the middle of the forest. We found a great tree cave and a natural pools carved into stone, and a handmade wooden sweatlodge, and lots of green and quiet. We sat around for six or seven hours, but this time we weren't waiting.
I tried to avoid writing this post because I didn't want to write about death again, and I didn't want to come up with some feel-good analysis of how to keep these things from breaking us down, or give some moral guide to reorganizing tragedy to build ourselves up. But it's unavoidable.
Usually, when I hear about deaths, I can do that moral guide thing, I can distance myself enough to understand the loss on some level, and use it on other levels to recognize the lesson learned to love life and make the most of every second. You never know when things are going to change. Man makes plans and god laughs. Be ready for change. Be ready for tragedy, be open to its invigorating elements.
But I don't think I succeeded in doing that that with the news of these deaths. I know about change, and I know how to look at the positive elements of tragedy, but sometimes we just want to mourn, not necessarily use the opportunity to boost our own morale and price of life. Even when we don't know the victim personally, recognizing their name, hearing about them in such detail, seeing their families crying and knowing, feeling, the desperation they must be going through, being familiar with the exact place they were injured and having been there numerous times, being familiar with the kind of community they come from, the kind of life they lived, makes it too difficult sometimes to be ready to pick ourselves up and find the feel-good moral of the story. Even if we get to spend a day lazing around in nature and feeling alive.
Monday, May 15, 2006
democratic lifeline
In his address assembling the new security cabinet Sunday, Ehud Olmert said that this would be the vehicle driving a new era in determining Israel's way of life and democratic nature. In hebrew, he used the term "arichat hahaim" which spelled one way means way of life, and spelled another means length of life, or lifeline.
He made the announcement only a couple hours after the supreme court decided to uphold its standing law preventing Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from living together in Israeli territory. In a vote of six to five, the supreme court upheld a discriminatory law that could have been avoided if Israel had a constitution. Five of eleven supreme court justices said the law was discriminatory, and supported the petitions to change it - but the law stands.
The justices' reasoning was that in time of war, you can't grant citizenship to the enemy. Judge Mishael Cheshin, who announced his resignation just before the final debate on the issue and serves his last day tomorrow, said a few months ago, "No one is preventing them from building a family but they should live in Jenin instead of in [the Israeli Arab city of] Umm al-Fahm."
Could an American supreme court justice make the same case for a U.S. citizen wanting to bring over his or her Iraqi partner?
Proponents say the ruling is not a matter of infringement on citizens' civil rights but rather a necessary wartime precaution, which leads us to understand that in wartime, civil rights don't count.
Right after the ruling, Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Israel's citizenship law had to be set into basic law, and said he'd do it in six months.
But without a constitution, there is no way to insure citizens' rights. Basic law does not have the same power as a living constitution. Without a constitution there is no vehicle to allow citizens to challenge a particular law on an individual basis with the guarantee of a general citizens' right.
When the citizenship law is set into place, there will be no room for arguments of discrimination. Amendments can be made, but not with the backing of the constitutional right of the citizen. The law will be determined with consideration of security and religion, and will not consider the rights of those who are affected by the rule. The basic law will only continue to perpetuate the cycle of discrimination, because it will establish a general rule without consideration of rights. It will allow for a supreme court justice to suggest its non-Jewish citizen go live in a refugee camp in a violent non-state rather than give its citizen's spouse the right to live with family. Setting this law, or any law, without a consitution provides only a legal basis for systemic discrimination.
The difference between determinining Israel's 'way of life' and its 'lifeline' is minimal. As long as Israel continues to set its way of life without consideration for the varying and individual needs of its diverse citizens, its lifeline shakes. As long as Israel continues to spout democratic rhetoric while doing nothing to change or quell the discrimination that exists on on every level from religious to economic to racial, its lifeline shakes. As long as no documents exist to provide a guarantee for the right of an individual citizen, its lifeline shakes. Israel cannot call itself a democracy while simultaneously discriminating openly against its citizens. Its length of life depends on a necessary lifeline, a consititution. Without a constitution, there is no way to ensure the sustainability of any of the rights its citizens enjoy now, or the sustainability of democracy.
He made the announcement only a couple hours after the supreme court decided to uphold its standing law preventing Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from living together in Israeli territory. In a vote of six to five, the supreme court upheld a discriminatory law that could have been avoided if Israel had a constitution. Five of eleven supreme court justices said the law was discriminatory, and supported the petitions to change it - but the law stands.
The justices' reasoning was that in time of war, you can't grant citizenship to the enemy. Judge Mishael Cheshin, who announced his resignation just before the final debate on the issue and serves his last day tomorrow, said a few months ago, "No one is preventing them from building a family but they should live in Jenin instead of in [the Israeli Arab city of] Umm al-Fahm."
Could an American supreme court justice make the same case for a U.S. citizen wanting to bring over his or her Iraqi partner?
Proponents say the ruling is not a matter of infringement on citizens' civil rights but rather a necessary wartime precaution, which leads us to understand that in wartime, civil rights don't count.
Right after the ruling, Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Israel's citizenship law had to be set into basic law, and said he'd do it in six months.
But without a constitution, there is no way to insure citizens' rights. Basic law does not have the same power as a living constitution. Without a constitution there is no vehicle to allow citizens to challenge a particular law on an individual basis with the guarantee of a general citizens' right.
When the citizenship law is set into place, there will be no room for arguments of discrimination. Amendments can be made, but not with the backing of the constitutional right of the citizen. The law will be determined with consideration of security and religion, and will not consider the rights of those who are affected by the rule. The basic law will only continue to perpetuate the cycle of discrimination, because it will establish a general rule without consideration of rights. It will allow for a supreme court justice to suggest its non-Jewish citizen go live in a refugee camp in a violent non-state rather than give its citizen's spouse the right to live with family. Setting this law, or any law, without a consitution provides only a legal basis for systemic discrimination.
The difference between determinining Israel's 'way of life' and its 'lifeline' is minimal. As long as Israel continues to set its way of life without consideration for the varying and individual needs of its diverse citizens, its lifeline shakes. As long as Israel continues to spout democratic rhetoric while doing nothing to change or quell the discrimination that exists on on every level from religious to economic to racial, its lifeline shakes. As long as no documents exist to provide a guarantee for the right of an individual citizen, its lifeline shakes. Israel cannot call itself a democracy while simultaneously discriminating openly against its citizens. Its length of life depends on a necessary lifeline, a consititution. Without a constitution, there is no way to ensure the sustainability of any of the rights its citizens enjoy now, or the sustainability of democracy.
Monday, May 08, 2006
it's all in the wrist
We read our horoscopes on the way to Haifa on Friday. We laughed at its advice. The general hint of the week was not to rely on our luck, use careful planning and do our homework. True, we were on a 3:30 train to Haifa instead of the 2:15 to Acco, and true we had missed that train because while we stood arguing with the guards to keep the doors open just one more minute our friend Danielle was upstairs at the ticket booth frantically trying to figure out whether to get a ticket and to where. But we felt lucky.
It was a lucky day. I'd worked till seven am and written some diatribe about war until nine and slept until one and now I was on a train up north. We bought a sandwich on the train and somebody offered us theirs uneaten. Bad idea? We figured we'd never do it on a New York subway but this was Israel. We got a ride in the Haifa train station parking lot and from there five more until we reached Tsfat. We knew we were camping, but we didn't know where. We were meeting 12 other people.
It turned out we were sleeping in a park on the peak of Tsfat next to a crusader fortress. We got there as the sun was setting. The tents were already set up. Pesach, an awesome guy who loves his friends and loves to be happy and wasn't even there for the weekend, had arranged us all meals in the old city. He'd set me and two others up at his friend Yonatan's house, which turned out to be an old stone split level building with a giant black llama outside the door and a great family inside. We came with an extra person. They gave us an exta sleeping bag.
We got back to the tents at different times and drifted in kind. I woke up at about 10. We moved onto a platform in the shade overlooking the city and covered it with blankets and sleeping bags. I'd bought vegetables, Tiferet cooked them with lentils, Jackie and Miriam also made salad and stew, and someone else had gotten 40 pitas, three loaves of bread and some wine. There was another stew there, from someone, and a bag of eggs that had made their way from somewhere else.
We sat around and ate and sat around and gave each other massages and sat around and talked, and people started thinking about going for a walk in the wadi. Danielle and I went for a shorter walk and when we came back, Jackie and Elisha were hanging in a tree. We'd met a guy and his dog, one of whom looked into the tree and said, "those people look like their going to fall."
I only saw Jackie's legs. I'd stubbed my toe before and it was bleeding and I was on my way to clean it when somebody said, "what happened," and everybody ran over to see.
Jackie was lying on the ground, half her body hidden in the bushes. She was dazed and her arm was twisted into a shape I've never seen before. At least not on Jackie. Ami went to get an ambulance and we tried to figure out how to move her while she said, "guys, I think it's serious," which we could see, and Max rubbed her head and I rubbed her stomach and someone else held her other hand.
The ambulance came and the paramedic put her arm on a styrofoam splint and joked around. Elisha and I helped her to the ambulance and someone handed me her bag. Her passport was in there. Nobody had any money. My phone and wallet were locked in someone's house.
None of us had ever been in an ambulance before. It was bumpy and narrow and Jackie looked like she was going to throw up, but gracefully. The paramedic forgot her name and asked Elisha whether he was her boyfriend. He didn't want to say. The paramedic wanted to know what Elisha did. We wanted to know how Jackie was.
The best day to get hurt in Israel is on a Saturday. The emergency room was empty. I took her passport and insurance information and tried to sort out the bill, but they wouldn't accept her insurance without a card and we had no way of paying. I signed a promissory note to pay the next morning and got another one from the ambulance.
The doctors forgot her arm hurt or didn't understand her pain because she doesn't speak any Hebrew and their English was worse. They jostled her arm and let us follow them around with Jackie to the x-ray room and into the "activity room" but they didn't give her any drugs until right before they snapped her wrist back into place and they made us wait outside while they did it. We heard her crying inside and laughing and shouting "arret" and then we went with her to get another x-ray. She walked with us this time.
The doctor was reluctant to write the diagnosis in clear English for her insurance company and told her she'd have to wear the cast for 6 weeks and get a follow-up once a week only after he'd already turned around and said goodbye and Jackie had gone out of her way to ask.
We got a ride from someone waiting for his mother which took us all the way back to Tzfat. We'd taken 10 steps on the pedestrian mall when we saw the cops. They said hello to us and saw Jackie's cast. They asked Elisha who he was. He said he'd lived there for four years and indicated that we were coming back from the hospital with our friend who had just broken her wrist. They took his I.D. number and searched his pockets and Jackie's bag, which he was carrying. The bad cop handed the tobacco over to his good partner in the car to smell and a bag of tea to the other partner. When Elisha handed him his rolling papers the cop smirked and lifted them up for his partners to see. Then he gave them back to Elisha and one of the cops in the car gave Jackie a lemon.
We'd thought we'd have a hard time deciding what to do now that sleeping on the beach made less sense, but when we got back to camp everybody was in a hurry to go home. We made havdalah on a giant cup of arak, two candles and some tea, and then everbody packed up and went to the bus station. Danielle stayed behind with me and Jackie and Elisha. So did the guy and his dog, who had come back. He offered us a place to stay but we still wanted to go back to the hospital to pay and knew that pizza and ice cream had to be had. Elisha went off to return equipment to friends around town, and I ordered a large pizza. By the time we finished eating it was past 12 so we decided to take up the offer of another friend who had invited us to stay with him.
Gavi's house was beautiful and clean and we each got a sheet and a blanket and a bed. We slept well and Jackie was comfortable and only woke up at 11:30. I'd gotten a text message the night before saying I was working at 8 pm. We got our stuff together and thanked Gavi for being so damn awesome and headed to the highway. A cab offered to take us to the hospital for 15 shekels and a guy in a red car offered to take us for free. He picked up his friend who worked at the hospital on the way.
It took a while to figure out the money situation and the insurance situation and the bureaucratic situation at the hospital, but we were on our way out by 3:30. We wanted to get to the train in Acco, but someone offered us a ride to Ma'alot where we could get a bus into Nahariya, so we got in. We drove north instead of south and looked at the mountains and listened to our forty-year-old driver's P.J. Harvey collection and got to Tel Aviv by seven. Marwan the hummus man gave us a free half kilo at the Nahariya station.
Jackie told me last night, when I came home from work at four and she was just waking up from a drowsy sleep, that she always pictured herself getting hurt. I asked her if she ever pictured any particular and she told me she usually saw herself being slammed by a truck mirror while riding her bike or being hit by a bus walking in the sreet.
I thought I was the only one who did that. Pictured my own limitations in vivid detail and worse-case scenarios. I asked her if she thought everybody did it. She said she didn't think so.
She's in a lot of pain now and feels helpless in her body. She's going to be in a cast for six weeks. She feels stupid for grabbing a branch that she didn't trust in the first place, but people fall out of trees. It could have been avoided but so could a lot of things or maybe nothing can. She pictured some injuries and got another, we picture some realities and get another, but it is what is and once you know that the rest makes a lot more sense.
It was a lucky day. I'd worked till seven am and written some diatribe about war until nine and slept until one and now I was on a train up north. We bought a sandwich on the train and somebody offered us theirs uneaten. Bad idea? We figured we'd never do it on a New York subway but this was Israel. We got a ride in the Haifa train station parking lot and from there five more until we reached Tsfat. We knew we were camping, but we didn't know where. We were meeting 12 other people.
It turned out we were sleeping in a park on the peak of Tsfat next to a crusader fortress. We got there as the sun was setting. The tents were already set up. Pesach, an awesome guy who loves his friends and loves to be happy and wasn't even there for the weekend, had arranged us all meals in the old city. He'd set me and two others up at his friend Yonatan's house, which turned out to be an old stone split level building with a giant black llama outside the door and a great family inside. We came with an extra person. They gave us an exta sleeping bag.
We got back to the tents at different times and drifted in kind. I woke up at about 10. We moved onto a platform in the shade overlooking the city and covered it with blankets and sleeping bags. I'd bought vegetables, Tiferet cooked them with lentils, Jackie and Miriam also made salad and stew, and someone else had gotten 40 pitas, three loaves of bread and some wine. There was another stew there, from someone, and a bag of eggs that had made their way from somewhere else.
We sat around and ate and sat around and gave each other massages and sat around and talked, and people started thinking about going for a walk in the wadi. Danielle and I went for a shorter walk and when we came back, Jackie and Elisha were hanging in a tree. We'd met a guy and his dog, one of whom looked into the tree and said, "those people look like their going to fall."
I only saw Jackie's legs. I'd stubbed my toe before and it was bleeding and I was on my way to clean it when somebody said, "what happened," and everybody ran over to see.
Jackie was lying on the ground, half her body hidden in the bushes. She was dazed and her arm was twisted into a shape I've never seen before. At least not on Jackie. Ami went to get an ambulance and we tried to figure out how to move her while she said, "guys, I think it's serious," which we could see, and Max rubbed her head and I rubbed her stomach and someone else held her other hand.
The ambulance came and the paramedic put her arm on a styrofoam splint and joked around. Elisha and I helped her to the ambulance and someone handed me her bag. Her passport was in there. Nobody had any money. My phone and wallet were locked in someone's house.
None of us had ever been in an ambulance before. It was bumpy and narrow and Jackie looked like she was going to throw up, but gracefully. The paramedic forgot her name and asked Elisha whether he was her boyfriend. He didn't want to say. The paramedic wanted to know what Elisha did. We wanted to know how Jackie was.
The best day to get hurt in Israel is on a Saturday. The emergency room was empty. I took her passport and insurance information and tried to sort out the bill, but they wouldn't accept her insurance without a card and we had no way of paying. I signed a promissory note to pay the next morning and got another one from the ambulance.
The doctors forgot her arm hurt or didn't understand her pain because she doesn't speak any Hebrew and their English was worse. They jostled her arm and let us follow them around with Jackie to the x-ray room and into the "activity room" but they didn't give her any drugs until right before they snapped her wrist back into place and they made us wait outside while they did it. We heard her crying inside and laughing and shouting "arret" and then we went with her to get another x-ray. She walked with us this time.
The doctor was reluctant to write the diagnosis in clear English for her insurance company and told her she'd have to wear the cast for 6 weeks and get a follow-up once a week only after he'd already turned around and said goodbye and Jackie had gone out of her way to ask.
We got a ride from someone waiting for his mother which took us all the way back to Tzfat. We'd taken 10 steps on the pedestrian mall when we saw the cops. They said hello to us and saw Jackie's cast. They asked Elisha who he was. He said he'd lived there for four years and indicated that we were coming back from the hospital with our friend who had just broken her wrist. They took his I.D. number and searched his pockets and Jackie's bag, which he was carrying. The bad cop handed the tobacco over to his good partner in the car to smell and a bag of tea to the other partner. When Elisha handed him his rolling papers the cop smirked and lifted them up for his partners to see. Then he gave them back to Elisha and one of the cops in the car gave Jackie a lemon.
We'd thought we'd have a hard time deciding what to do now that sleeping on the beach made less sense, but when we got back to camp everybody was in a hurry to go home. We made havdalah on a giant cup of arak, two candles and some tea, and then everbody packed up and went to the bus station. Danielle stayed behind with me and Jackie and Elisha. So did the guy and his dog, who had come back. He offered us a place to stay but we still wanted to go back to the hospital to pay and knew that pizza and ice cream had to be had. Elisha went off to return equipment to friends around town, and I ordered a large pizza. By the time we finished eating it was past 12 so we decided to take up the offer of another friend who had invited us to stay with him.
Gavi's house was beautiful and clean and we each got a sheet and a blanket and a bed. We slept well and Jackie was comfortable and only woke up at 11:30. I'd gotten a text message the night before saying I was working at 8 pm. We got our stuff together and thanked Gavi for being so damn awesome and headed to the highway. A cab offered to take us to the hospital for 15 shekels and a guy in a red car offered to take us for free. He picked up his friend who worked at the hospital on the way.
It took a while to figure out the money situation and the insurance situation and the bureaucratic situation at the hospital, but we were on our way out by 3:30. We wanted to get to the train in Acco, but someone offered us a ride to Ma'alot where we could get a bus into Nahariya, so we got in. We drove north instead of south and looked at the mountains and listened to our forty-year-old driver's P.J. Harvey collection and got to Tel Aviv by seven. Marwan the hummus man gave us a free half kilo at the Nahariya station.
Jackie told me last night, when I came home from work at four and she was just waking up from a drowsy sleep, that she always pictured herself getting hurt. I asked her if she ever pictured any particular and she told me she usually saw herself being slammed by a truck mirror while riding her bike or being hit by a bus walking in the sreet.
I thought I was the only one who did that. Pictured my own limitations in vivid detail and worse-case scenarios. I asked her if she thought everybody did it. She said she didn't think so.
She's in a lot of pain now and feels helpless in her body. She's going to be in a cast for six weeks. She feels stupid for grabbing a branch that she didn't trust in the first place, but people fall out of trees. It could have been avoided but so could a lot of things or maybe nothing can. She pictured some injuries and got another, we picture some realities and get another, but it is what is and once you know that the rest makes a lot more sense.
more war
Apparently, someone (a.k.a Bush) is calling the war on terror world war III (thanks for the heads-up, Mobius), in agreement with an article written last month for the Wall Street Journal by David Beamer, whose son died on 9/11, and contrary to my assumption in the last post that "there is a world war happening right now and nobody has stepped forward to declare it."
But according to ABC,
In 2002, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer explicitly declined to call the hunt for Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda group and its followers "World War III."
Can a world war be declared retrospectively?
But according to ABC,
In 2002, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer explicitly declined to call the hunt for Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda group and its followers "World War III."
Can a world war be declared retrospectively?
Friday, May 05, 2006
war games
Do I walk around freely at night without curfew during war? Do I take long weekends in nature? Do I hop between cities from a great job to easy relaxation and freedom of press, dress and pastime? Do I fear rockets and missiles and bombs and guns? Do I see soldiers walking around en masse, tanks rolling in the streets? Are these my soldiers? Are these my tanks? Is it seige or celebration? Trench warfare or terror?
Israel and the western world are fighting a war on terror, an oxymoronic term distinguished into separate concepts only by nuance. In both cases, destruction is the goal, humans are the target. In a country with mandatory conscription, the line between civilian and soldier is fine. When is it terror? When is it war?
I live in the center of this conflict, but my experience of war is through media alone. In the West Bank and Gaza, militants take the steets shooting guns in the air, their infrastructure is the crumbled product of weak effort and occupation, their youth are the brainwashed victims of ultimate pessimism, fundamentalism and constant violence. Foreign soldiers roam the streets, invading homes, destroying buildings, attacking from air, sea and land. The thousands killed comprise both militants and innocents. Theirs is a war zone.
Mine is the target of terror. Terror is innocuous war. Civilians are at risk in both but it is the method of fear-mongering that differentiates combat from terror. I can leave my house whenever I want and never have to worry about losing my home, but I know that each day I am the likely target of destruction. I know I could be blown up on a bus. I know a rocket could hit Tel Aviv. I know Israel is the front-lines of any battle between the Middle East and the U.S. But I live otherwise freely with only the threat of terror. Meanwhile, thousands more in my half of the war zone are maimed, dead or traumatized. Nobody has won.
The difference between terrorism and the Cold War is that terrorism has proved its possibilities. Terrorism is the natural heir to the Cold War. It is the new war game. There is a world war happening right now and nobody has stepped forward to declare it. The allies have reconvened against the axis of evil. They are fighting to prove that traditional warfare will surpass this new debauchery. On one side, it is the same cast of characters: Britain, France, United States and a new German republic. On the other side, Arabia has been reincarnated into a fundamentalist military and economic power. Islamic fundamentalism has replaced the crusades. The wars go on, now indistinguishable and unprecedently long.
Terror is war which cannot be declared, because it relies on surprise tactics and ambush. Terrorists don't declare invasion - they strike when nobody is looking. By declaring a war on terror on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has set out to prove that only a war which is declared can be won. By sending combat soldiers into Palestinian towns and invading with air strikes to crack down on security, Israel is firmly sustaining its tradition of war, of triumphing through military and intelligence. But by refusing to admit its nuclear capabilities and singling out Israel in case of U.S. attack, Iran has set out to prove that cold war is superior - that terror is the best way to prove a point. Iraqi rebels and Palestinian militants are doing the same. It is the guerillas against the soldiers.
But traditional war has lost its efficacy and its glamor, and the guerilla turn from armed ambush to suicide bombings is a promised defeat. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still rage, soldiers are still killed in combat, civilians in cross-fire, and it is becoming more difficult to remember what the fight was about in the first place. Suicide bombers, using alternative war tactics, set themselves up for deliberate loss - a loss of their own life, a loss of innocent lives and absolutely no redemption for their cause. Terror is the new war, but both are impossible situations. It is impossible to win a war on terror because terror is the new war. Traditional warfare cannot snuff terror because terror is by definition an unbridled tactic of ambush. War is a game of logic and power, of demarcation and boundaries, of winners and losers. Terror is fundamentalism, the anti-logic. It is total annihilation without any rules.
This generation's world war will not end until it is acknowledged for what it is. As long as each side continues to play a different game, no solution is possible.
Israel and the western world are fighting a war on terror, an oxymoronic term distinguished into separate concepts only by nuance. In both cases, destruction is the goal, humans are the target. In a country with mandatory conscription, the line between civilian and soldier is fine. When is it terror? When is it war?
I live in the center of this conflict, but my experience of war is through media alone. In the West Bank and Gaza, militants take the steets shooting guns in the air, their infrastructure is the crumbled product of weak effort and occupation, their youth are the brainwashed victims of ultimate pessimism, fundamentalism and constant violence. Foreign soldiers roam the streets, invading homes, destroying buildings, attacking from air, sea and land. The thousands killed comprise both militants and innocents. Theirs is a war zone.
Mine is the target of terror. Terror is innocuous war. Civilians are at risk in both but it is the method of fear-mongering that differentiates combat from terror. I can leave my house whenever I want and never have to worry about losing my home, but I know that each day I am the likely target of destruction. I know I could be blown up on a bus. I know a rocket could hit Tel Aviv. I know Israel is the front-lines of any battle between the Middle East and the U.S. But I live otherwise freely with only the threat of terror. Meanwhile, thousands more in my half of the war zone are maimed, dead or traumatized. Nobody has won.
The difference between terrorism and the Cold War is that terrorism has proved its possibilities. Terrorism is the natural heir to the Cold War. It is the new war game. There is a world war happening right now and nobody has stepped forward to declare it. The allies have reconvened against the axis of evil. They are fighting to prove that traditional warfare will surpass this new debauchery. On one side, it is the same cast of characters: Britain, France, United States and a new German republic. On the other side, Arabia has been reincarnated into a fundamentalist military and economic power. Islamic fundamentalism has replaced the crusades. The wars go on, now indistinguishable and unprecedently long.
Terror is war which cannot be declared, because it relies on surprise tactics and ambush. Terrorists don't declare invasion - they strike when nobody is looking. By declaring a war on terror on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has set out to prove that only a war which is declared can be won. By sending combat soldiers into Palestinian towns and invading with air strikes to crack down on security, Israel is firmly sustaining its tradition of war, of triumphing through military and intelligence. But by refusing to admit its nuclear capabilities and singling out Israel in case of U.S. attack, Iran has set out to prove that cold war is superior - that terror is the best way to prove a point. Iraqi rebels and Palestinian militants are doing the same. It is the guerillas against the soldiers.
But traditional war has lost its efficacy and its glamor, and the guerilla turn from armed ambush to suicide bombings is a promised defeat. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still rage, soldiers are still killed in combat, civilians in cross-fire, and it is becoming more difficult to remember what the fight was about in the first place. Suicide bombers, using alternative war tactics, set themselves up for deliberate loss - a loss of their own life, a loss of innocent lives and absolutely no redemption for their cause. Terror is the new war, but both are impossible situations. It is impossible to win a war on terror because terror is the new war. Traditional warfare cannot snuff terror because terror is by definition an unbridled tactic of ambush. War is a game of logic and power, of demarcation and boundaries, of winners and losers. Terror is fundamentalism, the anti-logic. It is total annihilation without any rules.
This generation's world war will not end until it is acknowledged for what it is. As long as each side continues to play a different game, no solution is possible.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
58
Only one person called me on it. It was David, a kid who I haven't seen since he was 8 years old and charming the pants off of everybody at our camp. We were at an innocuously massive bonfire/drumming extravaganza in the middle of downtown Jerusalem, at Ronen Jembe the jembe maker's studio/apartment/secret garden, when this blond kid came up and asked me if I was I me. I was, and I told him so. I asked him if he was his older brother and he said no. Then I remembered him.
In the last ten years he has become even more charming than I remember and a self-declared right-wing religious fundamentalist, though you wouldn't know it from looking at him (whatever that means). He told me he was going to the army next year because Jews are a warrior nation and as a Jew, he had to be a warrior. He said his yeshiva in Gush Etzion was full of 'lefty liberals,' he told me he wouldn't question the morality of anything in the torah because why would he question the morality of something god told us to do, he told me if a baby was born and he saw that it came from Amalek he hoped he would be able to kill it, he asked why he should go somewhere besides Israel to learn about himself, and he told me he firmly believed that Jews are superior. When I asked if he had ever read any Ze'ev Jabotinsky, he looked at me and said, "that's my man!"
The whole time we talked he was laughing, not because any of it was a joke, but because the truth of it to him was so clear, it was ridiculous.
He told me he could never be a real hippie because of his political leanings (though it has a totally different meaning in this country) and then he called us on it, our raison d'etre, our reason for partying and drum-banging and guitar-strumming and flying-high around the fire.
"I doubt how much any of these people really mean it," he said.
He could have meant a thousand things, but it turned out he meant, "how many people here do you think are dancing because it's Israel's 58th birthday? They'd be doing the same thing at a Phish show."
It was only when he said it that I remembered it was Independence Day. I'd remembered by name, but I'd forgotten what it meant. When I was kid it meant these romantic images of Jewish pioneers and partisans, heros and brave hearts, flying the flag of Israel, secure at home. For David, that's still what it means, and for my grandmother too, and for my father, and somewhere, for me too, but none of it makes any sense.
While we were dancing and barbequing more than 2,000 Israeli Arabs and Jews were marching in Daliat al-Carmel to mark 58 years since Naqba Day, the term Arabs use in reference to their defeat in Israel's 1948 war of independence. Do native Americans do this on the fourth of July?
The park in Jerusalem was stuffed with people and grills the whole day, everybody had the day off (except me, I had to be at work at 4), and the place looked like a war zone carnival, all smoke and bodies and noise.
But when I got into Tel Aviv, it was a totally different celebration. I know over in my neighborhood there was a street party, and the beaches and parks were probably filled, but at least by the bus station, independence day was despressing. I saw three separate men sleeping deeply on three separate empty sidewalks, and a lone family making a barbeque in front of a crumbling building on a corner street.
I wonder what people were thinking about the meaning of the day. For some it was a fiercly patriotic day of historical permission to shoot fists up in victory and say, 'look at me, I'm in holiday heaven and this is my homeland, I'm home.' And for others it was a time to say, 'yes, I know I vote and I know I sit in Knesset and I know I say I'm happy being an Arab with Israeli citizenship, but today I'm showing you what I really think, and what I really think is that today symbolizes the day I traded one freedom for another, and here I am in solidarity with my brothers who didn't take the choice." And for everyone else, it was just a free day to relax.
And one day later? One day later the grand synagogue in Petah Tikvah was covered in swastikas, and then elected Yisrael Beiteinu head and member of Knesset Avigdor Lieberman went all out and said what he'd been trying to say all this time, that Arabs in Knesset who show loyalty to anyone besides Jews should be executed. And everyone else started thinking about Lag Ba'Omer and the next big bonfire.
In the last ten years he has become even more charming than I remember and a self-declared right-wing religious fundamentalist, though you wouldn't know it from looking at him (whatever that means). He told me he was going to the army next year because Jews are a warrior nation and as a Jew, he had to be a warrior. He said his yeshiva in Gush Etzion was full of 'lefty liberals,' he told me he wouldn't question the morality of anything in the torah because why would he question the morality of something god told us to do, he told me if a baby was born and he saw that it came from Amalek he hoped he would be able to kill it, he asked why he should go somewhere besides Israel to learn about himself, and he told me he firmly believed that Jews are superior. When I asked if he had ever read any Ze'ev Jabotinsky, he looked at me and said, "that's my man!"
The whole time we talked he was laughing, not because any of it was a joke, but because the truth of it to him was so clear, it was ridiculous.
He told me he could never be a real hippie because of his political leanings (though it has a totally different meaning in this country) and then he called us on it, our raison d'etre, our reason for partying and drum-banging and guitar-strumming and flying-high around the fire.
"I doubt how much any of these people really mean it," he said.
He could have meant a thousand things, but it turned out he meant, "how many people here do you think are dancing because it's Israel's 58th birthday? They'd be doing the same thing at a Phish show."
It was only when he said it that I remembered it was Independence Day. I'd remembered by name, but I'd forgotten what it meant. When I was kid it meant these romantic images of Jewish pioneers and partisans, heros and brave hearts, flying the flag of Israel, secure at home. For David, that's still what it means, and for my grandmother too, and for my father, and somewhere, for me too, but none of it makes any sense.
While we were dancing and barbequing more than 2,000 Israeli Arabs and Jews were marching in Daliat al-Carmel to mark 58 years since Naqba Day, the term Arabs use in reference to their defeat in Israel's 1948 war of independence. Do native Americans do this on the fourth of July?
The park in Jerusalem was stuffed with people and grills the whole day, everybody had the day off (except me, I had to be at work at 4), and the place looked like a war zone carnival, all smoke and bodies and noise.
But when I got into Tel Aviv, it was a totally different celebration. I know over in my neighborhood there was a street party, and the beaches and parks were probably filled, but at least by the bus station, independence day was despressing. I saw three separate men sleeping deeply on three separate empty sidewalks, and a lone family making a barbeque in front of a crumbling building on a corner street.
I wonder what people were thinking about the meaning of the day. For some it was a fiercly patriotic day of historical permission to shoot fists up in victory and say, 'look at me, I'm in holiday heaven and this is my homeland, I'm home.' And for others it was a time to say, 'yes, I know I vote and I know I sit in Knesset and I know I say I'm happy being an Arab with Israeli citizenship, but today I'm showing you what I really think, and what I really think is that today symbolizes the day I traded one freedom for another, and here I am in solidarity with my brothers who didn't take the choice." And for everyone else, it was just a free day to relax.
And one day later? One day later the grand synagogue in Petah Tikvah was covered in swastikas, and then elected Yisrael Beiteinu head and member of Knesset Avigdor Lieberman went all out and said what he'd been trying to say all this time, that Arabs in Knesset who show loyalty to anyone besides Jews should be executed. And everyone else started thinking about Lag Ba'Omer and the next big bonfire.
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