When Likud MK Naomi Blumenthal was suspected of giving improper favors to Likud Central Committee members in exchange for their support in the party's primary, Ariel Sharon made a point of ostracizing her from his circle and verbally flogging her in public. Today Blumenthal's verbal attack on the PM let to the end of a Likud faction meeting in which Sharon was to discuss his revised disengagement plan. It would be so ironic indeed if Blumenthal, who hasn't really done a hell of a lot in her political career, plays a central role in the Likud's undoing.
Monday, May 31, 2004
Likud's week of destiny
While some political analysts are saying that in future years we might look back on this week as when the Likud party split, I'm not so sure. Haaretz correspondent Akiva Eldar says Sharon has unmasked the Likud, while the Jerusalem Post's Tovah Lazaroff says Netanyahu, more than Sharon, needs a compromise that will allow him to support the disengagement plan.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
The reason Israel razed Yamit
I had always assumed that Israel's motivation for demolishing all buildings and infrastructure after withdrawing from territory was a kind of punitive measure to prevent the "enemy" from living in Israeli homes, but it turns out that PM Menachem Begin ordered Yamit razed in 1982 to prevent Israeli residents opposed to the peace deal from sneaking back into their homes.
The secret of Appel's success
Israeli businessman David Appel, who is accused of bribing the prime minister, reveals to Haaretz the secret of his success:
"So obviously I see all the metaphysical forces now. I recognize them and know how they work. And this puts me in possession of a billion times more information than you have. I understand how this world operates. I know exactly how every single thing operates. There is no question to which I do not have an answer. And so my ability is exponentially greater. My ability to receive information is unlimited. There is nothing in the universe that I cannot comprehend. Including the secret of matter. There is nothing in the universe whose content and structure I don't know."
"So obviously I see all the metaphysical forces now. I recognize them and know how they work. And this puts me in possession of a billion times more information than you have. I understand how this world operates. I know exactly how every single thing operates. There is no question to which I do not have an answer. And so my ability is exponentially greater. My ability to receive information is unlimited. There is nothing in the universe that I cannot comprehend. Including the secret of matter. There is nothing in the universe whose content and structure I don't know."
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Bullets for sale
At least Israel is benefiting in some way from the Iraq mess. Ths U.S. is buying bullets from Israel Military Industries Ltd. for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Can the U.S. win in Iraq?
Haaretz security affairs analyst Ze'ev Schiff warns that the U.S. government is broadcasting strategic confusion in Iraq.
Ze'ev speaks
Hebrew University Professor Ze'ev Sternhell writes another compelling piece about Israel's need to let go of the territories.
My neighbor the catwoman
My neighbor is Eliza the catwoman. I call her the catwoman because she regularly throws scraps of raw meat to stray cats in the Tel Aviv neighborhood in which I live. The neighorhood of Kerem Hatemanim (literally "the Yemenite vineyard," but there are no grape vines here), is located next to the shuk (market). It's not for everyone, especially the Tzafonim who prefer the sterility and cleanliness of northern Tel Aviv. But the Kerem is between the shuk and the beach, and also within a short walk to Allenby and Sheinkin streets.
But back to Eliza. I guess she must be in her 50s. Her apartment is in the building next to mine, with barely a few meters separating her kitchen windows to the large sliding window to my living room. She's from the old generation of Israelis who have no problem shouting conversations from her window to people in the street or standing in other apartment windows.
She lives with some elderly people. I still haven't figured out exactly how many or who they are. It's at least one, maybe two. I once heard someone ask Eliza how her mother was doing, so maybe she lives with her.
Before I moved in, the former tenants of my apartment warned me about Eliza. They said that she would sometimes throw scraps of meat from her window into their living room for their cat. I often see Eliza returning from the market with plastic bags filled with meat scraps.
"They all know me in the shuk," she proudly told me once upon her return.
One morning changed my life. I saw her walking around topless in her apartment. Believe me when I say that this was not something I wanted to see, nor did I do so intentionally. The window to her kitchen was completely open. In one instant I completely understood Oedipus and what could drive a man to put out his own eyes. To my horror, the image remains seared into my memory today.
If there is a God, then I most certainly committed a terrible sin to have deserved this awful burden.
A few weeks later, unsurprisingly, Eliza began throwing meat from her window to my two dogs. I saw her from my sliding window in my living room and asked her to please stop, although I thanked her for the gesture. I told her that it wasn't good for a dog to eat so much meat, especially on the bone. She agreed to stop.
Less than a week later, I came home to discover a framed photograph of me and my sister taken at her wedding a few years ago lying in pieces on the living room floor. A barbecued chicken leg rested on the table where the photo had stood previously. It must have been after a bad day at work because I went directly to the open window and shouted to Eliza, who was stnding in her kitchen, that if she ever throws meat into my apartment again I would call the police. She feigned ignorance, but when I pointed out the chicken leg as evidence she apologized.
(I can just imagine the conversation if I did call the police:
Voice: This is the police.
Me: Shalom. I know this will sound strange and you have more important things to worry about, but I'm calling because my neighbor throws meat from her apartment window into the living room of my apartment.
Voice on phone: Why is she throwing meat into your apartment?
Me: I have two dogs. I asked her to stop but she continues.)
Several months ago, very late on a Friday night, I was laying in bed with a lady friend when suddenly I heard Eliza shouting from her apartment.
"What's that noise?!? It's the Sabbath!!! There are children in this neighborhood!!!"
She was responding to the sounds of sex coming from a nearby apartment, which we had heard as well. Unfortunately the sounds weren't coming from my own room.
Eliza's partner in crime, Bruria, then joined the fracas. Bruria lives in my building, in the apartment directly above me. She's the only tenant on my side of the building who owns her apartment and isn't renting. She's a grandmother and as unattractive as a grandmother could possibly be without being horribly disfigured. It wouldn't take much computer alteration for her to resemble a non-human character from one of the far away planets in Star Wars. Just change her skin color. Her raspy voice and morning coughing fits give away years of smoking, and I often find her cigarette butts in the flower bed that hangs from my balcony window. (I know they are hers because no one else lives above me.)
"What was that?!? Disgusting!!! It's the Sabbath." Bruria shouted from her balcony. "People are trying to sleep!!"
"Did you hear that?!?" Eliza asked Bruria. "Disgusting!!"
Neither of these women appear to me to be particularly religious, so I don't quite grasp their concern with the alleged violation of religious laws. (Isn't having sex on the Sabbath with one's spouse, for procreation of course, considered a mitzva?). But I can certainly say that if they were ultra-Orthodox, they haven't see a white sheet with a hole in it for many years. But if I ever run into a blind guy who calls himself Oedipus, I'll be sure to ask him if he knows Eliza or Bruria.
But back to Eliza. I guess she must be in her 50s. Her apartment is in the building next to mine, with barely a few meters separating her kitchen windows to the large sliding window to my living room. She's from the old generation of Israelis who have no problem shouting conversations from her window to people in the street or standing in other apartment windows.
She lives with some elderly people. I still haven't figured out exactly how many or who they are. It's at least one, maybe two. I once heard someone ask Eliza how her mother was doing, so maybe she lives with her.
Before I moved in, the former tenants of my apartment warned me about Eliza. They said that she would sometimes throw scraps of meat from her window into their living room for their cat. I often see Eliza returning from the market with plastic bags filled with meat scraps.
"They all know me in the shuk," she proudly told me once upon her return.
One morning changed my life. I saw her walking around topless in her apartment. Believe me when I say that this was not something I wanted to see, nor did I do so intentionally. The window to her kitchen was completely open. In one instant I completely understood Oedipus and what could drive a man to put out his own eyes. To my horror, the image remains seared into my memory today.
If there is a God, then I most certainly committed a terrible sin to have deserved this awful burden.
A few weeks later, unsurprisingly, Eliza began throwing meat from her window to my two dogs. I saw her from my sliding window in my living room and asked her to please stop, although I thanked her for the gesture. I told her that it wasn't good for a dog to eat so much meat, especially on the bone. She agreed to stop.
Less than a week later, I came home to discover a framed photograph of me and my sister taken at her wedding a few years ago lying in pieces on the living room floor. A barbecued chicken leg rested on the table where the photo had stood previously. It must have been after a bad day at work because I went directly to the open window and shouted to Eliza, who was stnding in her kitchen, that if she ever throws meat into my apartment again I would call the police. She feigned ignorance, but when I pointed out the chicken leg as evidence she apologized.
(I can just imagine the conversation if I did call the police:
Voice: This is the police.
Me: Shalom. I know this will sound strange and you have more important things to worry about, but I'm calling because my neighbor throws meat from her apartment window into the living room of my apartment.
Voice on phone: Why is she throwing meat into your apartment?
Me: I have two dogs. I asked her to stop but she continues.)
Several months ago, very late on a Friday night, I was laying in bed with a lady friend when suddenly I heard Eliza shouting from her apartment.
"What's that noise?!? It's the Sabbath!!! There are children in this neighborhood!!!"
She was responding to the sounds of sex coming from a nearby apartment, which we had heard as well. Unfortunately the sounds weren't coming from my own room.
Eliza's partner in crime, Bruria, then joined the fracas. Bruria lives in my building, in the apartment directly above me. She's the only tenant on my side of the building who owns her apartment and isn't renting. She's a grandmother and as unattractive as a grandmother could possibly be without being horribly disfigured. It wouldn't take much computer alteration for her to resemble a non-human character from one of the far away planets in Star Wars. Just change her skin color. Her raspy voice and morning coughing fits give away years of smoking, and I often find her cigarette butts in the flower bed that hangs from my balcony window. (I know they are hers because no one else lives above me.)
"What was that?!? Disgusting!!! It's the Sabbath." Bruria shouted from her balcony. "People are trying to sleep!!"
"Did you hear that?!?" Eliza asked Bruria. "Disgusting!!"
Neither of these women appear to me to be particularly religious, so I don't quite grasp their concern with the alleged violation of religious laws. (Isn't having sex on the Sabbath with one's spouse, for procreation of course, considered a mitzva?). But I can certainly say that if they were ultra-Orthodox, they haven't see a white sheet with a hole in it for many years. But if I ever run into a blind guy who calls himself Oedipus, I'll be sure to ask him if he knows Eliza or Bruria.
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Fire the foreign minister!
In any normal country, a foreign minister withholding his support from the prime minister's major diplomatic initiative would be swiftly removed from his post. But this is Israel we're talking about, and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom is among three Likud ministers - Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Limor Livnat being the otehr two - holding out before deciding whether they will support Sharon's revised disengagement plan. I guess all three aren't thinking about what is best for Israel, but rather who will be king of the mountain the day after Sharon is no longer prime minister.
Was it worth it? Apparently not.
Haaretz security affiars analyst Ze'ev Schiff writes that last week's large-scale military operation in Rafah produced few tangible accomplishments and in essence was meant as a warning to Palestinians to behave themselves after Israel evacuates from the Gaza Strip.
Apparently we've learned nothing about the consequences of destroying Palestinian homes and lives. I'm not saying this because I think the operation was morally wrong, but because it didn't serve Israel's security interests. If the operation accomplished anything, it created a few more Palestinians willing to blow themselves up and take some Israeli civilians with them. I wonder how many of the children who saw their Rafah homes destroyed last week will be in Israeli jails in 10 years?
Apparently we've learned nothing about the consequences of destroying Palestinian homes and lives. I'm not saying this because I think the operation was morally wrong, but because it didn't serve Israel's security interests. If the operation accomplished anything, it created a few more Palestinians willing to blow themselves up and take some Israeli civilians with them. I wonder how many of the children who saw their Rafah homes destroyed last week will be in Israeli jails in 10 years?
Shin Bet plays hardball
So last night the Shin Bet arrested British reporter Peter Hounam, who broke the Sunday Times' story some 20 years ago of Mordechai Vanunu's account of Israel's nuclear program in Dimona.
Hounam has made the most of the Vanunu story, covering it for years, and has been in Israel for the past several months so he could cover Vanunu's release from prison in April. (Pictured in this photo taken in April is Hounam on the right hugging Vanunu after his release from jail.)
His arrest must mean that the security establishment is worried about a story Hounam was planning to release. Reports in recent months have said that Israel is more concerned about details being released regarding Vanunu's abduction from Rome and imprisonment than any new revelations about its nuclear program.
The whole thing seems a bit too heavy handed to me, and I think that if the Mossad abducts Israeli citizens from abroad, the Israeli public has a right to know more about such tactics.
Obsession?
The New York Times looks at the obsession of bloggers and asks if anyone is actually reading.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
The king is dead
Congratulations to employees of The Jerusalem Post, now free of the tirades of Tom Rose (pictured in photo), who is out as CEO and publisher. Rose's tyrannical antics, which include the firing of a veteran employee who was in the midst of a battle with cancer, are well known to pretty much everyone inside Israel's journalism scene.
Rose's firing wasn't unexpected, since the Post is up for sale after the fallout from Conrad Black's ouster as CEO of Hollinger International, which owns the Post. Along with some other former executives, Black is suspected of taking millions of dollars in "unauthorized payments" from the company during his tenure. (Some people would call it embezzlement.)
Mark Ziman, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at the Post, will temporarily take over Rose's post until a permanent replacement is found. Ziman isn't exactly known at the Post for his journalistic acumen. At a meeting a few months ago, shortly after it was revealed that recently released nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu would be renting an apartment in Jaffa, Ziman asked colleagues, "So who is this Vanunu guy moving into an apartment near me?"
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Celebrity sighting
A source close to Not Another Israel Blog spotted former Hezbollah prisoner Elhanan Tennenbaum today in Tel Aviv. He was crossing the street at Sderot Chen near Rabin Square, joined by his daughter and grandchild. The source says that Tennenbaum appeared older and more frail than he has appeared in TV footage.
I'm not so sick as to actually do this, nor am I suggesting that anyone does, but it would have been cruely amusing to sneak up behind Tennenbaum and just give a big scream to check how fried his nerves really are.
While I certainly condemn Tennenbaum for being motivated by financial gain, allegedly to be made in a drug deal, I think the guy has been punished enough. His life is pretty much over and the Israeli public will never forgive him.
I'm not so sick as to actually do this, nor am I suggesting that anyone does, but it would have been cruely amusing to sneak up behind Tennenbaum and just give a big scream to check how fried his nerves really are.
While I certainly condemn Tennenbaum for being motivated by financial gain, allegedly to be made in a drug deal, I think the guy has been punished enough. His life is pretty much over and the Israeli public will never forgive him.
What does Grandpa think?
I was surprised to see in the latest ABC/Washington Post poll on Bush's approval rating that the demographic with the highest percentage who disapprove strongly of his performance as president is age 61 and older. Who says you get more conservative as you get older?
The joys of tunneling
Whether you love her or hate her, Amira Hass has an interesting piece in Haaretz today about how the Palestinians dig the tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.
Rolling in Tel Aviv
I took my girlfriend bowling tonight in Tel Aviv. While it lacked the warm atmosphere one finds in lanes in the U.S., which feature a layer of stale cigarette smoke in the air, overweight Americans drinking beer and eating french fries between rolls and serious bowlers with various kinds of mechanical appendages attached to their throwing limb, it was fun nonetheless.
The bowling lanes we went to, located in the mall in the KLM (or Shekem) building on Ibn Gvirol Street, even have a league that meets 8 PM on Wednesday nights. I'm tempted to check it out, if only to see what kind of Israeli bowls.
As far as my performance, my first game was a disaster with a score somwhere under 90, but my second was much more respectable 137.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Do suicide bombers grow on trees?
Although I've grown a bit tired of the Friedman shtick, I recommend his latest column on the recruitment of suicide bombers.
Sexism and the conflict
Today I was considering writing a response to Sarah Honig's latest column in The Jerusalem Post, but decided that by doing so it would lend credit to her line of argument which is pretty much just a collection of accusations against the left and lacking any coherence.
But something Honig mentioned did stir my thoughts and that was the role of Israeli women in the debate regarding the conflict with the Palestinians.
It seems that Israeli society grants women who speak out on the conflict a certain legitimacy withheld from men. As women, with the image society imposes on women and mothers in particular, right-wing columnists such as Sarah Honig and Caroline Glick enjoy a certain added authority to comment on the situation. Mothers naturally worry about protecting their young, so ostensibly Honig and Glick take their positions with the best interests of our children at heart, and women are incapable of being war-mongers like men.
But this is where we are mistaken, and in fact, I would argue that we are guilty of intellectual sexism that cheapens the arguments of men and women alike and impairs our ability to objectively and rationally evaluate the content of the author's
message, regardless of his/her gender.
We make the same mistake, albeit in the opposite direction, when evaluating the argument made by some former senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces for a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians - assuming that the former officer is motivated by security interests.
In her piece, Honig uses the authority we grant her as a woman to speak on security matters and condemns women from the left-wing Four Mothers movement. We unconsciously credit her for not been swayed by her maternal and emotional instincts which society as a whole believes affect the ability of women to think rationally. On the other hand, the left-wing deems women from the Four Mothers movement as having the authority of motherhood while the right-wing sees them as being misled by their idenity as women and mothers.
It's certainly no accident that the Four Mothers movement chose this name. They did so in order to call attention to the fact that they are mothers, and thus to accentuate the maternal concern for one's child, in this case for children serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
But this doesn't serve our interests as a country in thinking clearly to fidn a solution. Too much of the discourse here on the conflict, on both the left and right, is based on emotional appeal. This helps give readers of their favorite political columnists a fix by providing a sense of moral superiority, it doesn't advance our cause as a country and is an insult to the intelligence of the audience.
Finally, I must comment on the tone of Honig's column. While I identify myself as a leftist, I have never felt the need to identify the right-wing or settlers as the enemy. Yet Honig, speaking of Israeli leftists opposed to the operation in Rafah, has no such qualms. She quotes a 1942 piece by Orwell on the war against Fascism: "If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'"
So, Sarah, I ask you one simple question. If we are at war, and I am against you, what course of action should be taken? The venom oozing from your piece would suggest you favor a firing squad for the enemy from within. I hope that I'm mistaken.
But something Honig mentioned did stir my thoughts and that was the role of Israeli women in the debate regarding the conflict with the Palestinians.
It seems that Israeli society grants women who speak out on the conflict a certain legitimacy withheld from men. As women, with the image society imposes on women and mothers in particular, right-wing columnists such as Sarah Honig and Caroline Glick enjoy a certain added authority to comment on the situation. Mothers naturally worry about protecting their young, so ostensibly Honig and Glick take their positions with the best interests of our children at heart, and women are incapable of being war-mongers like men.
But this is where we are mistaken, and in fact, I would argue that we are guilty of intellectual sexism that cheapens the arguments of men and women alike and impairs our ability to objectively and rationally evaluate the content of the author's
message, regardless of his/her gender.
We make the same mistake, albeit in the opposite direction, when evaluating the argument made by some former senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces for a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians - assuming that the former officer is motivated by security interests.
In her piece, Honig uses the authority we grant her as a woman to speak on security matters and condemns women from the left-wing Four Mothers movement. We unconsciously credit her for not been swayed by her maternal and emotional instincts which society as a whole believes affect the ability of women to think rationally. On the other hand, the left-wing deems women from the Four Mothers movement as having the authority of motherhood while the right-wing sees them as being misled by their idenity as women and mothers.
It's certainly no accident that the Four Mothers movement chose this name. They did so in order to call attention to the fact that they are mothers, and thus to accentuate the maternal concern for one's child, in this case for children serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
But this doesn't serve our interests as a country in thinking clearly to fidn a solution. Too much of the discourse here on the conflict, on both the left and right, is based on emotional appeal. This helps give readers of their favorite political columnists a fix by providing a sense of moral superiority, it doesn't advance our cause as a country and is an insult to the intelligence of the audience.
Finally, I must comment on the tone of Honig's column. While I identify myself as a leftist, I have never felt the need to identify the right-wing or settlers as the enemy. Yet Honig, speaking of Israeli leftists opposed to the operation in Rafah, has no such qualms. She quotes a 1942 piece by Orwell on the war against Fascism: "If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'"
So, Sarah, I ask you one simple question. If we are at war, and I am against you, what course of action should be taken? The venom oozing from your piece would suggest you favor a firing squad for the enemy from within. I hope that I'm mistaken.
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