Maureen Dowd recently returned to the USA from Suadi Arabia. Upon her return she understood that the oppression of woman over there is more or less the same as their oppression by the Catholic Church.
I spoof you not. Her column is at the top of the list of popular stories at the NYT website.
The only interesting part of this otherwise silly story is that her insight is the result of her trip. Her encounter with the reality, that's what did it, not the other way around. You might have expected an ignoramus to make a thoughtless comment, then to correct it once shown reality. You'd be wrong: it works in exactly the opposite direction.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Ashes and Dust
The climactic annual shirim ivri'im events are Yom Hashoah, the commemoration day for the Holocaust, and Yom HaZikaron, the commemoration day for the fallen in Israel's wars, a week later. Both begin, like any Jewish holiday or holy day, on the previous evening. On both all institutions of frivolity ("batei inugim"), i.e restaurants, bars, clubs and normal theaters are closed (restaurants may open the next day); this is mandated by law, and in the 1950s when the law was new it was not always effective, but that was long ago. I can't think of any restaurateur even dreaming of opening on either evening, law or no law.
The media is also effected. All normal programs are either called off, or dedicated primarily to the subject of the day - or they're replaced by shirim. Hours and hours of shirim ivri'im. This begins in the late afternoon before the official beginning of the day of commemoration, but there are gradations. Experienced listeners (which means, any Israeli ten years of age or above, more or less) will notice that the shirim of 3pm before the evening are getting ever more somber, while those of 3pm the next afternoon may be getting slightly less so, at least on some channels.
There are some shirim which are more Holocaust related and will be less likely to be played on Yom HaZikaron and vice versa, at least to an extent.
Shir Hapartizanim, which I posted yesterday, is a bit problematic. At the time, no more than a few thousand Jews sung it; the rest never knew of it. In the early years of Israel, on the other hand, the survivors of the partisan units and ghetto fighters enjoyed significant prominence, and "their" anthem reverberated nationally. As the decades went on, this changed.
Yehuda Poliker was born in 1950 to two parents from Thessaloniki who had each lost their entire family including children, then met after the war and moved to Israel in the hope of building a new life (The few survivors who returned to Thessaloniki after the war didn't stay. Almost all moved to Israel). Poliker stutters when he talks... but never when he sings. He has been around since the 1970s, and is one of the most creative musical artists in Israel.
He composes music and produces for himself and for many others; only rarely does he write lyrics. Many of his songs were written by Yaacov Gil'ad. Gil'ad, born in 1951, is also the child of survivors, from Poland. He rarely sings, but has written important shirim for many artists; his partnership with Poliker was the longest and most important.
In 1988, at the peak of their fame, they produced a record which - so they tell it - was intended to be a private enterprise, of little interest to the broader public. It was titled Efer ve'Afar, Ashes and Dust, about growing up as children of Holocaust survivors. All indications are that it will outlive them longer than anything else they've done. Indeed, a year after it appeared and was a smashing success, a third child of survivors, filmmaker Orna Ben David, convened them with their parents in a harrowing documentary film called Biglal Hamilchama Hahi, Because of That War.
Here are two shirim from the record.
Tachana Ktana Treblinka - TheLittle Station of Treblinka was written in Polish, in the Warsaw Ghetto, in 1943, by Wladislaw Szlengel; it was translated into Hebrew by Halina Birnbaum, Gil'ad's mother. I'm not finding an English translation, but the most memorable line is "Sometimes the ride takes the rest of your life"
Hebrew lyrics
Then there's Lean at Nosa'at?, Where Do You Think You're Going? in which Yaacov Gil'ad asks his mother why she's going back to visit Poland, after all there's nothing there, only ashes and dust.
Hebrew words
English translation
A spring day the smell of lilac
Between the ruins of your city
A beautiful day to fish in the river
Inside me my heart is broken
There it was and it wasn't
Your child is a small woman
People that no-one knows
There isn't even a house that you'll remember
And if you're going, where are you going
Forever is just ashes and dust
Where are you going, where are you going
Years and nothing is erased…
Take a coat, it'll be cold
Money in your pocket, sugar crystal
If the days are hard
Remember me sometimes
And if it's a more desperate journey
To the hut, to the plot
On the path of the old city
No one will wait in the station…
Chorus…
Who will sweeten your nights
Who will listen to your crying
Who will stay by your side [while you are] on your way
Take a coat, it'll be cold.
The media is also effected. All normal programs are either called off, or dedicated primarily to the subject of the day - or they're replaced by shirim. Hours and hours of shirim ivri'im. This begins in the late afternoon before the official beginning of the day of commemoration, but there are gradations. Experienced listeners (which means, any Israeli ten years of age or above, more or less) will notice that the shirim of 3pm before the evening are getting ever more somber, while those of 3pm the next afternoon may be getting slightly less so, at least on some channels.
There are some shirim which are more Holocaust related and will be less likely to be played on Yom HaZikaron and vice versa, at least to an extent.
Shir Hapartizanim, which I posted yesterday, is a bit problematic. At the time, no more than a few thousand Jews sung it; the rest never knew of it. In the early years of Israel, on the other hand, the survivors of the partisan units and ghetto fighters enjoyed significant prominence, and "their" anthem reverberated nationally. As the decades went on, this changed.
Yehuda Poliker was born in 1950 to two parents from Thessaloniki who had each lost their entire family including children, then met after the war and moved to Israel in the hope of building a new life (The few survivors who returned to Thessaloniki after the war didn't stay. Almost all moved to Israel). Poliker stutters when he talks... but never when he sings. He has been around since the 1970s, and is one of the most creative musical artists in Israel.
He composes music and produces for himself and for many others; only rarely does he write lyrics. Many of his songs were written by Yaacov Gil'ad. Gil'ad, born in 1951, is also the child of survivors, from Poland. He rarely sings, but has written important shirim for many artists; his partnership with Poliker was the longest and most important.
In 1988, at the peak of their fame, they produced a record which - so they tell it - was intended to be a private enterprise, of little interest to the broader public. It was titled Efer ve'Afar, Ashes and Dust, about growing up as children of Holocaust survivors. All indications are that it will outlive them longer than anything else they've done. Indeed, a year after it appeared and was a smashing success, a third child of survivors, filmmaker Orna Ben David, convened them with their parents in a harrowing documentary film called Biglal Hamilchama Hahi, Because of That War.
Here are two shirim from the record.
Tachana Ktana Treblinka - TheLittle Station of Treblinka was written in Polish, in the Warsaw Ghetto, in 1943, by Wladislaw Szlengel; it was translated into Hebrew by Halina Birnbaum, Gil'ad's mother. I'm not finding an English translation, but the most memorable line is "Sometimes the ride takes the rest of your life"
Hebrew lyrics
Then there's Lean at Nosa'at?, Where Do You Think You're Going? in which Yaacov Gil'ad asks his mother why she's going back to visit Poland, after all there's nothing there, only ashes and dust.
Hebrew words
English translation
A spring day the smell of lilac
Between the ruins of your city
A beautiful day to fish in the river
Inside me my heart is broken
There it was and it wasn't
Your child is a small woman
People that no-one knows
There isn't even a house that you'll remember
And if you're going, where are you going
Forever is just ashes and dust
Where are you going, where are you going
Years and nothing is erased…
Take a coat, it'll be cold
Money in your pocket, sugar crystal
If the days are hard
Remember me sometimes
And if it's a more desperate journey
To the hut, to the plot
On the path of the old city
No one will wait in the station…
Chorus…
Who will sweeten your nights
Who will listen to your crying
Who will stay by your side [while you are] on your way
Take a coat, it'll be cold.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Partisans
Tomorrow is the day of commemoration of the Holocaust. Here's Shir Hapartisanim, the Song of the Partisans. It was written in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943, in Yiddish; the You-Tube film has it in Hebrew and in Yiddish. The music is, of course, Russian. Unmistakably so.
Hebrew Words
English translation
Never say you are going on your final road,
Although leadened skies block out blue days,
Our longed-for hour will yet come
Our step will beat out - we are here!
From a land of green palm trees to the white land of snow
We arrive with our pain, with our woe,
Wherever a spurt of our blood fell,
On that spot shall spurt forth our courage and our spirit.
The morning sun will brighten our day
And yesterday will disappear with our foe.
But if the sun delays to rise at dawn,
Then let this song be a password for generations to come.
This song is written with our blood, not with lead,
It is not a song of a free bird flying overhead.
Amid crumbling walls, a people sang this song,
With grenades in their hands.
So, never say the road now ends for you,
Although skies of lead block out days of blue.
Our longed-for hour will yet come -
Our step will beat out - we are here!
Hebrew Words
English translation
Never say you are going on your final road,
Although leadened skies block out blue days,
Our longed-for hour will yet come
Our step will beat out - we are here!
From a land of green palm trees to the white land of snow
We arrive with our pain, with our woe,
Wherever a spurt of our blood fell,
On that spot shall spurt forth our courage and our spirit.
The morning sun will brighten our day
And yesterday will disappear with our foe.
But if the sun delays to rise at dawn,
Then let this song be a password for generations to come.
This song is written with our blood, not with lead,
It is not a song of a free bird flying overhead.
Amid crumbling walls, a people sang this song,
With grenades in their hands.
So, never say the road now ends for you,
Although skies of lead block out days of blue.
Our longed-for hour will yet come -
Our step will beat out - we are here!
"A Threat to Democracy"
Earlier this afternoon I was at a weekly gathering of some 15-20 friends. A judge, four professors, four mere PhDs (that's me), some attorneys, a few physicians, some highly successful business people. We convene for a Talmud study session led by the judge, but the participants are of varying degrees of religious observance, from not at all to rather strict. Our politics are likewise diverse. The consensus was that Haaretz has broken all the rules; three of those present said they were going to cancel their subscriptions. I can't remember the group ever being so agitated.
The Poles have far greater woes this weekend than the Israelis, as do the Thais. The Anat Kamm story which has us all worked up is not really important, and I hope to stop dealing with it very soon. Yet I do wish to summarize it as it looks after spending a few hours carefully reading Haaretz - where it was by far the main story - and some other papers, where it was major but not exclusive.
The story began when Anat Kamm allegedly stole 2000 classified documents from the office of her commander, CO of the Central Front, Yair Naveh, between 2005-2007. Allegedly, because she hasn't yet been convicted, let us not forget. The documents dealt with many matters, of varying seriousness. The security forces say that once they had figured out what had been stolen they had to make changes to operational procedures and change operations, out of fear their details had leaked. We're a country at war, people get killed in our wars, and this theft interfered. No-one's saying anyone was killed, but as we say in Hebrew, that was more luck than brains. Also: the documents are still out there. They haven't been retrieved yet.
The lesson to be drawn from this part of the story is that the counter-espionage folks better get their act together.
Kamm's upcoming trial may cast light on the matter of her motives. We know (because she has openly said) that she holds seriously Left political opinions. However, she tried to join pilot training when she was 18, and during her military service she tried to be sent to officer training; both would have meant adding time to her service, and neither indicate an anti-Israel position. It sounds like she was a Meretz voter, and those people don't engage in treason anymore than anyone else. I'm not a lawyer, but my sense is that they're doing her a disservice by playing up any ideological motives. Were I in their place I'd portray her as silly, unthinking, and hope for 3 years in jail rather than 20.
Some of Israel's critics are dong everything in their power to portray her as a brave whistle-blower. (Silverstone, Mondowiess). The problem with this story line is that she didn't blow any whistles while she was in a position to do so, and after she left the army it took more than a year before she found anyone willing to look at her documents. (A journalist at Yediot, Israel's most popular paper, seems to have refused to look). My sense is that she tried to show the whole trove, not a specific document in it - but I could be wrong.
Eventually Uri Blau at Haaretz was interested. That was the turning point which changed the story from minor to major, and will probably cost Anat Kamm an extra decade in jail.
Before picking up the Haaretz strand, a reflection on political theory. In democracies, the electorate is sovereign. It expresses its sovereignty by periodically electing legislators who then elect the executive (or the executive is directly elected, in presidential democracies). The executive operates according to the law, as legislated by representatives of the electorate, and within the parameters of the constitution, which is also ultimately subordinate to the electorate. In order to ensure that the sovereign electorate is well informed about what its various elected representatives are doing, in the legislature and the executive, it's important to have freedom of speech, and freedom of information.
I recognize that it's more complicated than that, but those are the outlines.
The press does not have exemptions from the law, though in practice the executive is expected to respect the crucial role played by the media (when it does its job).
Over the weekend I spoke to a number of attorneys, including attorneys trained outside Israel. All were emphatic that journalists are not allowed to break the law. Not in Israel, not elsewhere.
Uri Blau did, when he published a story based on Kamm's stolen documents. Moreover, his editors (stupidly, in retrospect), published full pictures of some of the documents, thus giving the counter-espionage people a starting point for their investigation - which they duly used.
Haaretz republished most of Blau's story over the weekend, to remind us that the real culprits are the generals who are not behaving correctly. In brief, the High Court of Justice ordered that Palestinian terrorists not be assassinated in cases where they can be arrested; Kamm's documents seemed to be saying the generals were disregarding this order. Since Haaretz was so helpful as to re-publish the story, I feel confident in saying it isn't convincing. The documents they cite seem to be saying that the terrorists must be arrested, but if the choice is between letting them get away or killing them, they should be killed. In other words, precisely what the High Court said. There was also mention of the fact that should there be a need to fire at the terrorists, this would be permissible even if there was one single unidentified individual with them - but not two, say, or four. We know that in the invasion of Iraq the Americans were allowed to assassinate identified enemies along with up to 29 civilians - so the documents Kamm stole seem to prove the opposite of what Uri Blau said they proved.
So Kamm wasn't a whistle-blower, and Blau wasn't uncovering an uncomfortable truth the IDF needed to hide.
Much has been made about the fact that the story was submitted to the censor, so it must have been OK. This is dishonest, as the purveyors of the line know perfectly well but their gullible audience may not. It could perhaps have been true back in the 1960s, when the censor had teeth and was active. Ever since then, however, the powers of the censor have been whittled away, by technology, by public pressure, by reality. Nowadays the censor blocks stories with the potential to cause harm to life in clearly identified ways, but that's about it. A story in November 2008 about a discussion between officers in 2006 about an event which has long since passed won't be blocked by the censor.
You don't believe me? Go to the archives of Channel Two radio and see all the stories broken over the years by their fantastic correspondent on military matters, Carmela Menashe. Go to the archives of the newspapers and see the stories of reserve soldiers who reported - in real time, not two years later - that Israel's allies the Lebanese Phalanges were murdering people in Sabra and Chatilla in September 1982. Or go to the websites of Breaking the Silence, or for that matter, to the websites of any of the two dozen left-wing NGOs who regularly tell about all the awful things Israel does (or more accurately, often doesn't do but the stories are there anyway). Then ask yourself what sort of a censor it is who "allows" all these stories to appear, and if the Uri Blau story of November 2008 was so daring.
Since Haaretz had so helpfully shown the stolen documents, the counter-espionage officials came to talk with Blau. Had he been anything other than a journalist, he'd have been summarily arrested and facing many years of jail. But since he's a journalist, and democracy needs journalists to be able to act freely, he wasn't arrested. A deal was cut with him and he agreed to give back the stolen documents, so that they'd never reach someone more dangerous than Haaretz.
Blau returned 50 documents. When the investigators found Kamm independently of him, she told them there had been 2000 documents, not 50. The went back to Blau and his newspaper to retrieve the other 1950 documents, but he absconded, and his lawyers - who are the lawyers of Haaretz - have refused to return the documents.
All the attorneys I talked to over the weekend agree this is illegal. It's also stupid, I'd think. If I were in the Iranian intelligence services I'd be frantically looking for Uri Blau about now, obviously. Our counter espionage forces say this fear is what lead them to insist on that gag order until after they got the documents back, which makes sense but was probably a bad decision for other reasons. Yet if that's how it happened, Haaretz carries some responsibility for the gag order, too.
So far, Haaretz comes out of the story badly. Their Friday (weekend) edition made things much worse. The editor in chief collected his entire staff and told each and every one of them to write a story based on their particular areas of expertise, but the common line was to be that the State if Israel is wrong. It's laws are outdated. It's system of classification of military documents is designed to protect the generals, not to serve the security of the state. Uri Blau wrote about how he's the protector of our democratic freedoms. And so on and so on and so on. Importantly, the attack was not against the Netanyahu government: it was against the State of Israel, its laws and its institutions. All of the articles were translated to English, of course, and put on the paper's website:
Ze'ev Segal, the editorial, Anshel Pfeffer, Amos Harel, Uri Blau, Ron Leshem, Aluf Benn, Gideon Levy, Reuven Pedatzur, Akiva Eldar. Avi Issacharoff wasn't pulled into the morass, perhaps because no-one could figure out an angle to use his Palestinian sources to besmirch the country in this context.
For many years Haaretz used to advertise itself as "The newspaper for thinking people". This was an edition indistinguishable from Pravda. Every single one of the articles trotted out the party line; not a single journalist dared let out a peep of dissent. There was chattering galore about the freedom of press which is somehow under siege, and the sanctity of the High Court which was allegedly tainted, but not a single word about the bald fact that Haaretz has been and still is engaged in brazenly illegal actions. Silence, nada, nothing. Brezhnev would have been proud.
The Poles have far greater woes this weekend than the Israelis, as do the Thais. The Anat Kamm story which has us all worked up is not really important, and I hope to stop dealing with it very soon. Yet I do wish to summarize it as it looks after spending a few hours carefully reading Haaretz - where it was by far the main story - and some other papers, where it was major but not exclusive.
The story began when Anat Kamm allegedly stole 2000 classified documents from the office of her commander, CO of the Central Front, Yair Naveh, between 2005-2007. Allegedly, because she hasn't yet been convicted, let us not forget. The documents dealt with many matters, of varying seriousness. The security forces say that once they had figured out what had been stolen they had to make changes to operational procedures and change operations, out of fear their details had leaked. We're a country at war, people get killed in our wars, and this theft interfered. No-one's saying anyone was killed, but as we say in Hebrew, that was more luck than brains. Also: the documents are still out there. They haven't been retrieved yet.
The lesson to be drawn from this part of the story is that the counter-espionage folks better get their act together.
Kamm's upcoming trial may cast light on the matter of her motives. We know (because she has openly said) that she holds seriously Left political opinions. However, she tried to join pilot training when she was 18, and during her military service she tried to be sent to officer training; both would have meant adding time to her service, and neither indicate an anti-Israel position. It sounds like she was a Meretz voter, and those people don't engage in treason anymore than anyone else. I'm not a lawyer, but my sense is that they're doing her a disservice by playing up any ideological motives. Were I in their place I'd portray her as silly, unthinking, and hope for 3 years in jail rather than 20.
Some of Israel's critics are dong everything in their power to portray her as a brave whistle-blower. (Silverstone, Mondowiess). The problem with this story line is that she didn't blow any whistles while she was in a position to do so, and after she left the army it took more than a year before she found anyone willing to look at her documents. (A journalist at Yediot, Israel's most popular paper, seems to have refused to look). My sense is that she tried to show the whole trove, not a specific document in it - but I could be wrong.
Eventually Uri Blau at Haaretz was interested. That was the turning point which changed the story from minor to major, and will probably cost Anat Kamm an extra decade in jail.
Before picking up the Haaretz strand, a reflection on political theory. In democracies, the electorate is sovereign. It expresses its sovereignty by periodically electing legislators who then elect the executive (or the executive is directly elected, in presidential democracies). The executive operates according to the law, as legislated by representatives of the electorate, and within the parameters of the constitution, which is also ultimately subordinate to the electorate. In order to ensure that the sovereign electorate is well informed about what its various elected representatives are doing, in the legislature and the executive, it's important to have freedom of speech, and freedom of information.
I recognize that it's more complicated than that, but those are the outlines.
The press does not have exemptions from the law, though in practice the executive is expected to respect the crucial role played by the media (when it does its job).
Over the weekend I spoke to a number of attorneys, including attorneys trained outside Israel. All were emphatic that journalists are not allowed to break the law. Not in Israel, not elsewhere.
Uri Blau did, when he published a story based on Kamm's stolen documents. Moreover, his editors (stupidly, in retrospect), published full pictures of some of the documents, thus giving the counter-espionage people a starting point for their investigation - which they duly used.
Haaretz republished most of Blau's story over the weekend, to remind us that the real culprits are the generals who are not behaving correctly. In brief, the High Court of Justice ordered that Palestinian terrorists not be assassinated in cases where they can be arrested; Kamm's documents seemed to be saying the generals were disregarding this order. Since Haaretz was so helpful as to re-publish the story, I feel confident in saying it isn't convincing. The documents they cite seem to be saying that the terrorists must be arrested, but if the choice is between letting them get away or killing them, they should be killed. In other words, precisely what the High Court said. There was also mention of the fact that should there be a need to fire at the terrorists, this would be permissible even if there was one single unidentified individual with them - but not two, say, or four. We know that in the invasion of Iraq the Americans were allowed to assassinate identified enemies along with up to 29 civilians - so the documents Kamm stole seem to prove the opposite of what Uri Blau said they proved.
So Kamm wasn't a whistle-blower, and Blau wasn't uncovering an uncomfortable truth the IDF needed to hide.
Much has been made about the fact that the story was submitted to the censor, so it must have been OK. This is dishonest, as the purveyors of the line know perfectly well but their gullible audience may not. It could perhaps have been true back in the 1960s, when the censor had teeth and was active. Ever since then, however, the powers of the censor have been whittled away, by technology, by public pressure, by reality. Nowadays the censor blocks stories with the potential to cause harm to life in clearly identified ways, but that's about it. A story in November 2008 about a discussion between officers in 2006 about an event which has long since passed won't be blocked by the censor.
You don't believe me? Go to the archives of Channel Two radio and see all the stories broken over the years by their fantastic correspondent on military matters, Carmela Menashe. Go to the archives of the newspapers and see the stories of reserve soldiers who reported - in real time, not two years later - that Israel's allies the Lebanese Phalanges were murdering people in Sabra and Chatilla in September 1982. Or go to the websites of Breaking the Silence, or for that matter, to the websites of any of the two dozen left-wing NGOs who regularly tell about all the awful things Israel does (or more accurately, often doesn't do but the stories are there anyway). Then ask yourself what sort of a censor it is who "allows" all these stories to appear, and if the Uri Blau story of November 2008 was so daring.
Since Haaretz had so helpfully shown the stolen documents, the counter-espionage officials came to talk with Blau. Had he been anything other than a journalist, he'd have been summarily arrested and facing many years of jail. But since he's a journalist, and democracy needs journalists to be able to act freely, he wasn't arrested. A deal was cut with him and he agreed to give back the stolen documents, so that they'd never reach someone more dangerous than Haaretz.
Blau returned 50 documents. When the investigators found Kamm independently of him, she told them there had been 2000 documents, not 50. The went back to Blau and his newspaper to retrieve the other 1950 documents, but he absconded, and his lawyers - who are the lawyers of Haaretz - have refused to return the documents.
All the attorneys I talked to over the weekend agree this is illegal. It's also stupid, I'd think. If I were in the Iranian intelligence services I'd be frantically looking for Uri Blau about now, obviously. Our counter espionage forces say this fear is what lead them to insist on that gag order until after they got the documents back, which makes sense but was probably a bad decision for other reasons. Yet if that's how it happened, Haaretz carries some responsibility for the gag order, too.
So far, Haaretz comes out of the story badly. Their Friday (weekend) edition made things much worse. The editor in chief collected his entire staff and told each and every one of them to write a story based on their particular areas of expertise, but the common line was to be that the State if Israel is wrong. It's laws are outdated. It's system of classification of military documents is designed to protect the generals, not to serve the security of the state. Uri Blau wrote about how he's the protector of our democratic freedoms. And so on and so on and so on. Importantly, the attack was not against the Netanyahu government: it was against the State of Israel, its laws and its institutions. All of the articles were translated to English, of course, and put on the paper's website:
Ze'ev Segal, the editorial, Anshel Pfeffer, Amos Harel, Uri Blau, Ron Leshem, Aluf Benn, Gideon Levy, Reuven Pedatzur, Akiva Eldar. Avi Issacharoff wasn't pulled into the morass, perhaps because no-one could figure out an angle to use his Palestinian sources to besmirch the country in this context.
For many years Haaretz used to advertise itself as "The newspaper for thinking people". This was an edition indistinguishable from Pravda. Every single one of the articles trotted out the party line; not a single journalist dared let out a peep of dissent. There was chattering galore about the freedom of press which is somehow under siege, and the sanctity of the High Court which was allegedly tainted, but not a single word about the bald fact that Haaretz has been and still is engaged in brazenly illegal actions. Silence, nada, nothing. Brezhnev would have been proud.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Stickers
Talking politics is an Israeli passion. Hard to imagine if you're not aware of its intensity. One of the many avenues to express political and social sentiments is through stickers. The single most famous was unwittingly authored by Bill Clinton the night Rabin was assassinated, when he stood in the WHite House and said to the cameras: Shalom Chaver, goodbye friend. We were surrounded by politicians giving speeches, and Clinton had said it better in two Hebrew words. Hundreds of thousands of us had that sticker on our bumper by the next day.
Besides that one there have been about 48,356 others, and that's just this decade. (I'm speculating).
A few years ago David Grossman, one of our top novelists, compiled a shir made up entirely of such sticker-slogans. Legend has it that he sent his son, Uri, to scour town in serach of unusual stickers. The song came out, if I remember correctly, in 2005; Uri Grosssman was killed in action in Lebanon in August 2006.
Sung by Hadag Nachash (see yesterday), in a clip which itself is part of the text, if you watch carefully.
Words
English translation
A whole generation demands peace,
let the IDF win,
a strong nation makes peace,
let the IDF mow down,
there's no peace with Arabs,
don't give them guns,
combat-ready is the most, bro
draft for all, exemption for all
there's no despair in the world
judea and samaria is here
na nach Nachman from Uman
no fear, the messiah's in town
no arabs, no terror attacks
the supreme court endangers jews
the nation iswith the Golan
the nation is with the transfer
smog test in Yarka
friend, you are missed
the holy one, blessed be he
we elect you
direct elections are bad
the holy one, blessed be he
we are zealots to you
may the zealots/jealous die.
how much evil can be swallowed?
dad have mercy, dad have mercy
my name is Nachman and I stu-stutter
how much evil can be swallowed?
dad have mercy, dad have mercy
blessed be the Name, for I'm breathing, and therefore...
a state of halachah - the state is gone
whoever's born, scored
long live the king messiah
i'm secure in Sharon's peace
Hebron always and for eternity
whoever wasn't born missed out
Hebron of (our) forefathers
goodbye to transfer
Kahane was right
CNN lies
a strong leader's needed
nice going on the peace
thanks for the security
we have no children left for unnecessary wars
the left helps the Arabs
Bibi's good for the Jews
send the Oslo criminals to trail
us here, them there
brothres don't desert (brothers)
uprooting settlements splits the nation
death to the traitors
let the animals live
death to values!
how much evil can be swallowed...
(x3)
To liquidate, to kill, to banish, to mislead
to annihilate, extradite, death sentence, no fear,
to wipe out, to make extinct, to eradicate, to burn.
all because of you, my friend.
Besides that one there have been about 48,356 others, and that's just this decade. (I'm speculating).
A few years ago David Grossman, one of our top novelists, compiled a shir made up entirely of such sticker-slogans. Legend has it that he sent his son, Uri, to scour town in serach of unusual stickers. The song came out, if I remember correctly, in 2005; Uri Grosssman was killed in action in Lebanon in August 2006.
Sung by Hadag Nachash (see yesterday), in a clip which itself is part of the text, if you watch carefully.
Words
English translation
A whole generation demands peace,
let the IDF win,
a strong nation makes peace,
let the IDF mow down,
there's no peace with Arabs,
don't give them guns,
combat-ready is the most, bro
draft for all, exemption for all
there's no despair in the world
judea and samaria is here
na nach Nachman from Uman
no fear, the messiah's in town
no arabs, no terror attacks
the supreme court endangers jews
the nation iswith the Golan
the nation is with the transfer
smog test in Yarka
friend, you are missed
the holy one, blessed be he
we elect you
direct elections are bad
the holy one, blessed be he
we are zealots to you
may the zealots/jealous die.
how much evil can be swallowed?
dad have mercy, dad have mercy
my name is Nachman and I stu-stutter
how much evil can be swallowed?
dad have mercy, dad have mercy
blessed be the Name, for I'm breathing, and therefore...
a state of halachah - the state is gone
whoever's born, scored
long live the king messiah
i'm secure in Sharon's peace
Hebron always and for eternity
whoever wasn't born missed out
Hebron of (our) forefathers
goodbye to transfer
Kahane was right
CNN lies
a strong leader's needed
nice going on the peace
thanks for the security
we have no children left for unnecessary wars
the left helps the Arabs
Bibi's good for the Jews
send the Oslo criminals to trail
us here, them there
brothres don't desert (brothers)
uprooting settlements splits the nation
death to the traitors
let the animals live
death to values!
how much evil can be swallowed...
(x3)
To liquidate, to kill, to banish, to mislead
to annihilate, extradite, death sentence, no fear,
to wipe out, to make extinct, to eradicate, to burn.
all because of you, my friend.
Six Degrees of Separation
That's the number of jumps needed to go from any individual to any individual anywhere: mathematically, any one of us can reach anyone else by going through no more than six acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances. Say I wish to reach some Argentinian cowboy in the Pampas: I write to Fake-Ibrahim, and he turns to a radical-lefty at the university of cowboys, and we've still got four jumps which will probably be two or three more than necessary.
Israel being the very small place it is, by late evening yesterday I had found a connection to Anat Kamm, which turned out to be very easy and required only two intermediaries, and neither of them were remotely as far-fetched as the above example. It's a solid path.
The acquaintance of my acquaintance, who has known Kamm for a number of years, insists she's an unintelligent person who thought she could leverage secret documents into a step on the ladder of journalism, perhaps by proving her investigative abilities.
This doesn't exonerate her of anything, but it does make some of the others in the story, first and foremost Haaretz, into greater culprits. I'm not going to take this further at the moment, as I need the time to read Haaretz of today, but I expect I'll do another round-up tomorrow or the next day - so feel free to stay away if you're bored by the story.
Israel being the very small place it is, by late evening yesterday I had found a connection to Anat Kamm, which turned out to be very easy and required only two intermediaries, and neither of them were remotely as far-fetched as the above example. It's a solid path.
The acquaintance of my acquaintance, who has known Kamm for a number of years, insists she's an unintelligent person who thought she could leverage secret documents into a step on the ladder of journalism, perhaps by proving her investigative abilities.
This doesn't exonerate her of anything, but it does make some of the others in the story, first and foremost Haaretz, into greater culprits. I'm not going to take this further at the moment, as I need the time to read Haaretz of today, but I expect I'll do another round-up tomorrow or the next day - so feel free to stay away if you're bored by the story.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Numbers
Ok ok, I give up. There's no way I can do any kind of justice to the topic of shirim ivri'im with a daily installment for three weeks. Three years, mit a-kvetch. So I suppose I'll continue longer.
One of the essential parts of the canonical shirim is that they've withstood the test of time and are still around. This means we can't say with certainty which of today's songs will survive to join the canon. Still, there's lots of creativity going on. So, when Achikam came home this afternoon from his military unit, I told him about this little project, and asked his advice on the contemporary scene. He whipped out his iPod, connected it to some speakers, and started a concert; I opened a dozen windows of You Tube to watch their video versions. Some of them were less convincing, others more so. Here's one.
Hadag Nachash is a popular band. Their moniker means "The Fish Snake", which means it doesn't mean anything. This particular song, from 2001 apparently, is about numbers and what they mean to contemporary Israelis; it also has the advantage of bilingual subtitles, so one link gives all the needed information:
One of the essential parts of the canonical shirim is that they've withstood the test of time and are still around. This means we can't say with certainty which of today's songs will survive to join the canon. Still, there's lots of creativity going on. So, when Achikam came home this afternoon from his military unit, I told him about this little project, and asked his advice on the contemporary scene. He whipped out his iPod, connected it to some speakers, and started a concert; I opened a dozen windows of You Tube to watch their video versions. Some of them were less convincing, others more so. Here's one.
Hadag Nachash is a popular band. Their moniker means "The Fish Snake", which means it doesn't mean anything. This particular song, from 2001 apparently, is about numbers and what they mean to contemporary Israelis; it also has the advantage of bilingual subtitles, so one link gives all the needed information:
Anat Kamm and the Real Culprits
It took time, but eventually the court rescinded the gag order I related to earlier this week. Predictably, the fuller story that is now coming out is different than the one that swirled over the Web recently. That was about the benighted Israeli authorities who had made a young journalist disappear and then blocked the story, just like in Iran (really, that was the line. Go see Richard Silvestein's blog. He's been all over the story for weeks).
The story pouring out the past few hours is quite different. First, however, let's relate to the gag order. I expect when it was first given it was reasonable: investigators of leaks of large amounts of classified documents don't need thoughtless journalists second-guessing their every move and broadcasting the limits of the investigator's knowledge to possible unidentified culprits. This isn't because Israel resembles Iran, it's the nature of police work, anywhere. Eventually, however, selective versions of the story did reach journalists beyond the writ of Israeli gag orders; once this happened, allowing this slanted version to dominate the stage was poor tactics. Especially as we can now trace the time line, and the leaks to the press came late in the investigation. When former supreme court justice Dalia Dorner said this week that the order was causing damage, she knew what she was talking about.
Second, the initial facts. According to the allegations - which have yet to be proven in court, let us never forget - Anat Kamm stole thousands of classified documents from the office of a top IDF general during her military service. There's a long and detailed description of the case here, (only in Hebrew), and another long report, less extensive but in English, here. (The Hebrew report seems to be based on a six-page description sent out by the press office of the Ministry of Justice, but alas, they haven't posted their own press release on their own website, so I can't link to it. Lot's of bright light-bulbs in this story). If proven, Kamm will be sentenced to a long prison term for espionage (though being 23 years old she'll be out before she's 40), which is as it should be. Her acts could have lead to people getting killed: that's what top-secret military documents deal with. This isn't Enron, or Lehman Brothers.
Kamm's lawyers. There are two of them. Eitan Lehman is about 40, intelligent, probably a fine attorney, but not well known. He has no public persona. Avigdor Feldman, in his mid-60s, is one of Israel's most prominent criminal lawyers, and is arguably the single best known defender in politics-related trials from the Palestinian side or the Left. At this stage of the matter, lawyers are paid to deny all allegations and attack the prosecution: that's the way the game works. Interestingly, however, Eitan Lehman was sent to face the media and trot out the predictable lines about how his client is innocent and the prosecution is undermining democracy etc. Coming from Feldman, no-one wold listen; coming from Lehman-the-new-face, somebody just might. Nice touch, that. But then someone couldn't keep mum, and had to add that Ms. Kamm is a good person, who was motivated only by ideology, and not, say, money: "That's why she passed the documents to Haaretz and not to some foreign agency", according to her attorney Avigdor Feldman.
"Ideology", of course, means left-wing dissatisfaction with Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians and the way Israel defends itself from its enemies. Let us be clear about that. Yet another incident in which some people on Israel's Left cannot accept actions of its democratically elected executive or official organs.
According to the official description, Kamm tried to pass her documents to at least one (unidentified) media outlet before Haaretz, but that outlet declined to use them. Which brings us to the role of Haaretz. There seem to be a number of them. First, the fact that they used illegally procured documents for a story. I don't like it, not at all, but tend to the opinion that freedom of the press and the need to hold the authorities to the spirit and letter of the law in their activities may justify this. Or rather, in principle this can be justified; in this case: we don't know enough to say.
Journalists from other media outlets are saying that they've never seen a trove of 2000 classified document, ever. (Yoav Limor, channel one TV). I'm not certain what that tells us about the editors of Haaretz, but doubt it puts them in a positive light.
Then there's the matter of the negotiations with the police once the matter was under investigation. As far as I can tell, the behavior of Haaretz (and their lawyers) was wrong. They agreed to return the documents they had acquired, then returned a mere 50, not 2,000 - and neglected to tell that they had 2,000. The investigators only figured that out once they had arrested Anat Kamm.
Then there's the matter Uri Blau, reporter at Haaretz. He moved to London five months ago to escape the investigation (soft version), or arrest (hard version). He's living in London on the dime of Haaretz. As I write this Amos Schocken, proprietor of Haaretz, has just said on TV that the paper's attorneys are responsible for his staying there, and he (Schocken) supports this. So Haaretz is assisting a fugitive from the law in an espionage case. Looks very bad to me.
That's as far as I wish to take it right now. Perhaps in a day or a week I'll have more to say. Perhaps not.
The story pouring out the past few hours is quite different. First, however, let's relate to the gag order. I expect when it was first given it was reasonable: investigators of leaks of large amounts of classified documents don't need thoughtless journalists second-guessing their every move and broadcasting the limits of the investigator's knowledge to possible unidentified culprits. This isn't because Israel resembles Iran, it's the nature of police work, anywhere. Eventually, however, selective versions of the story did reach journalists beyond the writ of Israeli gag orders; once this happened, allowing this slanted version to dominate the stage was poor tactics. Especially as we can now trace the time line, and the leaks to the press came late in the investigation. When former supreme court justice Dalia Dorner said this week that the order was causing damage, she knew what she was talking about.
Second, the initial facts. According to the allegations - which have yet to be proven in court, let us never forget - Anat Kamm stole thousands of classified documents from the office of a top IDF general during her military service. There's a long and detailed description of the case here, (only in Hebrew), and another long report, less extensive but in English, here. (The Hebrew report seems to be based on a six-page description sent out by the press office of the Ministry of Justice, but alas, they haven't posted their own press release on their own website, so I can't link to it. Lot's of bright light-bulbs in this story). If proven, Kamm will be sentenced to a long prison term for espionage (though being 23 years old she'll be out before she's 40), which is as it should be. Her acts could have lead to people getting killed: that's what top-secret military documents deal with. This isn't Enron, or Lehman Brothers.
Kamm's lawyers. There are two of them. Eitan Lehman is about 40, intelligent, probably a fine attorney, but not well known. He has no public persona. Avigdor Feldman, in his mid-60s, is one of Israel's most prominent criminal lawyers, and is arguably the single best known defender in politics-related trials from the Palestinian side or the Left. At this stage of the matter, lawyers are paid to deny all allegations and attack the prosecution: that's the way the game works. Interestingly, however, Eitan Lehman was sent to face the media and trot out the predictable lines about how his client is innocent and the prosecution is undermining democracy etc. Coming from Feldman, no-one wold listen; coming from Lehman-the-new-face, somebody just might. Nice touch, that. But then someone couldn't keep mum, and had to add that Ms. Kamm is a good person, who was motivated only by ideology, and not, say, money: "That's why she passed the documents to Haaretz and not to some foreign agency", according to her attorney Avigdor Feldman.
"Ideology", of course, means left-wing dissatisfaction with Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians and the way Israel defends itself from its enemies. Let us be clear about that. Yet another incident in which some people on Israel's Left cannot accept actions of its democratically elected executive or official organs.
According to the official description, Kamm tried to pass her documents to at least one (unidentified) media outlet before Haaretz, but that outlet declined to use them. Which brings us to the role of Haaretz. There seem to be a number of them. First, the fact that they used illegally procured documents for a story. I don't like it, not at all, but tend to the opinion that freedom of the press and the need to hold the authorities to the spirit and letter of the law in their activities may justify this. Or rather, in principle this can be justified; in this case: we don't know enough to say.
Journalists from other media outlets are saying that they've never seen a trove of 2000 classified document, ever. (Yoav Limor, channel one TV). I'm not certain what that tells us about the editors of Haaretz, but doubt it puts them in a positive light.
Then there's the matter of the negotiations with the police once the matter was under investigation. As far as I can tell, the behavior of Haaretz (and their lawyers) was wrong. They agreed to return the documents they had acquired, then returned a mere 50, not 2,000 - and neglected to tell that they had 2,000. The investigators only figured that out once they had arrested Anat Kamm.
Then there's the matter Uri Blau, reporter at Haaretz. He moved to London five months ago to escape the investigation (soft version), or arrest (hard version). He's living in London on the dime of Haaretz. As I write this Amos Schocken, proprietor of Haaretz, has just said on TV that the paper's attorneys are responsible for his staying there, and he (Schocken) supports this. So Haaretz is assisting a fugitive from the law in an espionage case. Looks very bad to me.
That's as far as I wish to take it right now. Perhaps in a day or a week I'll have more to say. Perhaps not.
Monster project in Jerusalem
I travel here and there in the world, and am often struck by the intensity of the news cycle in Israel: probably the most intense anywhere. This post, for example, is about a story that was gigantic this morning, but by noon was totally pushed off the screens and forgotten.
Not only do I travel to various countries. I also travel rather often to Tel Aviv - these days, two or three times a week. Each time I reach town I'm struck by the fact that they've started building yet another 40-story tower. Even outside Tel Aviv, where in the 1960s standard apartment blocks were three stories, and in the 1970s they had four, nowadays they're mostly 15 or so. Which is good. Israel is a tiny country with a growing population, and the only way to go is up.
Except in Jerusalem. Although I live in a 12-story building, it is situated so almost no-one sees it, it breaks no skyline, and is almost unobtrusive. Jerusalem is a very special city, and needs to be built in gingerly and with sensitivity. Which is why some of us have been wondering for the past 15 years how anyone ever authorized the "Holyland" project (named after a 1930s hotel that once stood on a hill outside the city, if you can believe it. Nowadays it's in the middle of town). This is a 1,200-housing-unit project, in 12 towers built on a hill above the city; its architecture and proportions give it the appearance of a huge and ugly fortress brooding above the city and dwarfing everything around it. The only mitigating circumstance is that the hilltop is far from the Old City, so at least the truly historic parts of town have been spared its arrogance.
Accepted wisdom has always been that somebody greased somebody's palm; the fact that the mayor of the time was Ehud Olmert didn't buy him any fans and lost him some potential voters. Well, it now appears that the police also think there have been irregularities, and two days ago they arrested various folks, including Olmert's past best friend and former law partner, Uri Messer.
15 years late, alas. The towers are there, and will probably still be there for 500 years.
Not only do I travel to various countries. I also travel rather often to Tel Aviv - these days, two or three times a week. Each time I reach town I'm struck by the fact that they've started building yet another 40-story tower. Even outside Tel Aviv, where in the 1960s standard apartment blocks were three stories, and in the 1970s they had four, nowadays they're mostly 15 or so. Which is good. Israel is a tiny country with a growing population, and the only way to go is up.
Except in Jerusalem. Although I live in a 12-story building, it is situated so almost no-one sees it, it breaks no skyline, and is almost unobtrusive. Jerusalem is a very special city, and needs to be built in gingerly and with sensitivity. Which is why some of us have been wondering for the past 15 years how anyone ever authorized the "Holyland" project (named after a 1930s hotel that once stood on a hill outside the city, if you can believe it. Nowadays it's in the middle of town). This is a 1,200-housing-unit project, in 12 towers built on a hill above the city; its architecture and proportions give it the appearance of a huge and ugly fortress brooding above the city and dwarfing everything around it. The only mitigating circumstance is that the hilltop is far from the Old City, so at least the truly historic parts of town have been spared its arrogance.
Accepted wisdom has always been that somebody greased somebody's palm; the fact that the mayor of the time was Ehud Olmert didn't buy him any fans and lost him some potential voters. Well, it now appears that the police also think there have been irregularities, and two days ago they arrested various folks, including Olmert's past best friend and former law partner, Uri Messer.
15 years late, alas. The towers are there, and will probably still be there for 500 years.
Banality of Banality of Evil
Norm Geras has a thoughtful post on the ease with which too many folks assume we're all potential genocidaires, and wonders why we're not also commonly assumed to be potential rapists, say.
Norm is a nicer and more moderate chap than I, and much better at English understatement. Me, I'm of the opinion that much of the banality-is-evil chatter is bunk. This opinion of mine is based on years of close investigation of the worst genocidaires of all: the men of Adolf Eichmann's office in the SS. Yes, the very group about whom Hannah Arendt postulated the banality concept while willfully not listening to the proceedings at Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem. I don't much deal with the matter anymore, but once wrote a book about it which you can read in a variety of languages (see the link somewhere over to the left).
The closest one can reasonably come to a blanket condemnation of man's potential for evil is that it's not easy to know in advance who is capable of it, and who isn't, not ever. That's a far cry from the silliness traded in so mindlessly by the "Anyone might do it" brigades. And also - here I'll unmask how unpolitically correct I really am - cultural conditioning is part of the story. Some cultures more easily allow people to engage in mass murder than others.
Norm is a nicer and more moderate chap than I, and much better at English understatement. Me, I'm of the opinion that much of the banality-is-evil chatter is bunk. This opinion of mine is based on years of close investigation of the worst genocidaires of all: the men of Adolf Eichmann's office in the SS. Yes, the very group about whom Hannah Arendt postulated the banality concept while willfully not listening to the proceedings at Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem. I don't much deal with the matter anymore, but once wrote a book about it which you can read in a variety of languages (see the link somewhere over to the left).
The closest one can reasonably come to a blanket condemnation of man's potential for evil is that it's not easy to know in advance who is capable of it, and who isn't, not ever. That's a far cry from the silliness traded in so mindlessly by the "Anyone might do it" brigades. And also - here I'll unmask how unpolitically correct I really am - cultural conditioning is part of the story. Some cultures more easily allow people to engage in mass murder than others.
Striking Troops
A group of soldiers affiliated with the Har Brach yeshiva have gone on strike. They're protesting that the army no longer recognizes their yeshiva as part of the Hesder program, in which soldiers may exchange part of their active military service for study time; the lost recognition is the result of positions taken by the head of the yeshiva against soldiers participating in the dismantling of settlements.
I have no patience for these fellows. Soldiers don't go on strike, nor are they allowed to participate in political acts. If they insist, they should go to jail. This is true when left-leaning soldiers put their opinions above their orders, and it's true when right-leaning ones do so. The numbers on either side have never been significant - a handful - but the symbolism is clear. In a democracy, the military carries out missions defined by the executive (in Israel the constitutional specifics are that the cabinet is the commander in chief, though there is often a special, limited group of ministers who are designated to make ongoing decisions), the executive is elected, and if the electorate wishes it can defenestrate the executive - a prerogative often used. Citizens are free to strive to change the executive; soldiers are forbidden to. Reservists are soldiers when in uniform. Not hard to understand and live by.
I have no patience for these fellows. Soldiers don't go on strike, nor are they allowed to participate in political acts. If they insist, they should go to jail. This is true when left-leaning soldiers put their opinions above their orders, and it's true when right-leaning ones do so. The numbers on either side have never been significant - a handful - but the symbolism is clear. In a democracy, the military carries out missions defined by the executive (in Israel the constitutional specifics are that the cabinet is the commander in chief, though there is often a special, limited group of ministers who are designated to make ongoing decisions), the executive is elected, and if the electorate wishes it can defenestrate the executive - a prerogative often used. Citizens are free to strive to change the executive; soldiers are forbidden to. Reservists are soldiers when in uniform. Not hard to understand and live by.
Clash of Civilizations?
This certainly looks like one.
I've too much on my plate today, and even on the blogging front there are too many things that need to be tended, for me to have time for this topic, so I'm simply linking for future use. Though you might be interested in this second, accompanying item, about the OIC: note especially the very last sentence. Somehow, the Jews and Jerusalem always end up somewhere near the middle of such things, even when there's no rational need for them to be there at all.
I've too much on my plate today, and even on the blogging front there are too many things that need to be tended, for me to have time for this topic, so I'm simply linking for future use. Though you might be interested in this second, accompanying item, about the OIC: note especially the very last sentence. Somehow, the Jews and Jerusalem always end up somewhere near the middle of such things, even when there's no rational need for them to be there at all.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Eretz
Ishai writes in to request the song Eretz (land, country).
Well, yes, but which one? There are lots of shirim with that word in their title, because many of these songs deal with the land, the relationship to it, its price, and so on.
Why, there's even a famous shir about Brazil, called Eretz Tropit Yaffa, a beautiful tropical land, by Ehud Manor. Here's a 1978 recording with Matti Kaspi and a young Yehudit Ravits.
To be honest, though, I don't think that's the one Ishai had in mind. More likely, he meant Eretz Eretz Eretz, a 1974 song sung by Ilanit. Ilanit was probably the most famous singer of the 1970s, though she then mostly faded away, and even at the time she was famous but not excellent. Here's a video of her singing to troops.
Hebrew words.
English translation:
A land, a land, a land,
a land of a light blue sky without a cloud ,
and the sun is to it (to the land)
like milk and honey.
A land we were born in
a land we will live in,
and we will continue living here
no matter what happens.
A land that we'll love,
like Mother and Father,
a land of the people,
a land forever.
A land we were born in
a land we will live in,
no matter what happens.
A land, a land, a land,
the sea up against the shore,
and flowers and children
without end.
In the North - the Sea of Galilee,
In the South - sands,
And the East to the West
kisses the borders.
A land that we'll love...
A land, a land, a land,
land of the Torah,
you're the source of light
and the language of faith.
A land, a land, a land,
a dear land,
you promised
that it is not a fairytale.
A land that we'll love...
Finally, I can't resist this video version, because it's so hilarious.
Well, yes, but which one? There are lots of shirim with that word in their title, because many of these songs deal with the land, the relationship to it, its price, and so on.
Why, there's even a famous shir about Brazil, called Eretz Tropit Yaffa, a beautiful tropical land, by Ehud Manor. Here's a 1978 recording with Matti Kaspi and a young Yehudit Ravits.
To be honest, though, I don't think that's the one Ishai had in mind. More likely, he meant Eretz Eretz Eretz, a 1974 song sung by Ilanit. Ilanit was probably the most famous singer of the 1970s, though she then mostly faded away, and even at the time she was famous but not excellent. Here's a video of her singing to troops.
Hebrew words.
English translation:
A land, a land, a land,
a land of a light blue sky without a cloud ,
and the sun is to it (to the land)
like milk and honey.
A land we were born in
a land we will live in,
and we will continue living here
no matter what happens.
A land that we'll love,
like Mother and Father,
a land of the people,
a land forever.
A land we were born in
a land we will live in,
no matter what happens.
A land, a land, a land,
the sea up against the shore,
and flowers and children
without end.
In the North - the Sea of Galilee,
In the South - sands,
And the East to the West
kisses the borders.
A land that we'll love...
A land, a land, a land,
land of the Torah,
you're the source of light
and the language of faith.
A land, a land, a land,
a dear land,
you promised
that it is not a fairytale.
A land that we'll love...
Finally, I can't resist this video version, because it's so hilarious.
Capturing the Wind
I haven't had anything to say yet about the Anat Kamm case. Nor do I have anything intelligent to say now, since too many important details are still unclear.
On the adjacent story, however, of how our court has allowed a gag order to be applied even as the story is swirling around the Internet, I'm going on record as agreeing with Haaretz: sheer idiocy. Nor does this make me a brave voice of dissent or any such tosh: there's no danger in my saying so, it's not brave, it's simply common sense.
(I can add one small piece of information no-one else knows: one of her lawyers was once a student of mine. But I can't take credit even for his role in the matter).
On the adjacent story, however, of how our court has allowed a gag order to be applied even as the story is swirling around the Internet, I'm going on record as agreeing with Haaretz: sheer idiocy. Nor does this make me a brave voice of dissent or any such tosh: there's no danger in my saying so, it's not brave, it's simply common sense.
(I can add one small piece of information no-one else knows: one of her lawyers was once a student of mine. But I can't take credit even for his role in the matter).
Report from Gaza
Here's an interesting report in the Economist. I dare you to find anything - anything - in it which can remotely resemble an occupation in the common-sense meaning of the word. Not the contrived distortion of language which the lawfare brigades have invented to castigate Israel: regular language as the tool of describing reality and imparting information.
The follow-up question, of course, will be: if things in Gaza are getting remarkably better (compared to Gaza, mind you), shouldn't the imaginary Israeli "occupation" garner a bit of the credit?
Sorry. My mistake.
The follow-up question, of course, will be: if things in Gaza are getting remarkably better (compared to Gaza, mind you), shouldn't the imaginary Israeli "occupation" garner a bit of the credit?
Sorry. My mistake.
The Chabad Wave
A joke from the early 1990s went like this:
Q: Which religion is closest to Judaism?
A: Chabad (Lubavitch).
That was then, when in his final years the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, allowed his more excitable followers to play with the idea that he was the Messiah, and the rest of us grew ever less patient with their antics. Then in 1994 he died, as old men often do; there was a period of confusion; and eventually the Chabad movement moved forward. After 200 years of always having a charismatic Rebbe as their leader, they decided not to choose a successor to Menachem Mendel, who is still the Rebbe, but they figured out how to do without.
This was not obvious. At the time many knowledgeable observers were convinced the crises would bring Chabad down. Nor is the story over yet - it never is, so long as life goes on - and there still are fringe groups in Chabad who are convinced the Rebbe isn't dead, and much of the mainstream of Chabad still reveres him to an extent and with an intensity that makes the rest of us uncomfortable. Though their outward appearance is of Haredi Jews, the Haredi world by and large doesn't hold Chabad in high esteem, partly because of the messianism, but also because Chabad engages intensely with the non-Haredi world, which is the biggest no-no around.
In spite of all this, Chabad is one of the most interesting parts of the never-boring Jewish world. I would go so far as to speculate that it's one of the most important trends in the Jewish world, at least outside of Israel; even in Israel, where it must compete with an entire and very vital Jewish universe, it manages to hold its own ground.
The Forward has a mostly positive story about how Chabad is engaging Jewish students on American campuses; when you think of the many trends on campus, it's hard to find any fault with these folks whatsoever. The more the better, period: and apparently, indeed there are ever more of them.
The story of Chabad on campus, however, is merely a section of the larger story, of Chabad everywhere: the movement is setting up stations literally all over the world, where they offer a kosher Jewish environment and logistical support to whomever might need it. Israeli tourists (there are always Israeli tourists everywhere at any given moment, probably about 20 million of them) often plan their travel itineraries with an eye to these bases, and I don't mean only orthodox tourists; on the contrary, often it's the totally secular young backpackers. American Jews. Italian Jews. I recently encountered two young Bosnian Jews at a Chabad house to which they repair regularly to imbibe a bit of Jewish atmosphere. There's a flowering Chabad presence in Melbourne (two synagogues, inevitably) that once offered me a week's worth of Daf Yomi sessions away from home.
There's a theological depth to this which I won't go into, but there's also an earthy pragmatism: if you reach out to unengaged Jews often enough, some will reach back. Once they're in the fold, their ability to reach out will multiply the potency of the movement.
As I said: an interesting evolving story.
Q: Which religion is closest to Judaism?
A: Chabad (Lubavitch).
That was then, when in his final years the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, allowed his more excitable followers to play with the idea that he was the Messiah, and the rest of us grew ever less patient with their antics. Then in 1994 he died, as old men often do; there was a period of confusion; and eventually the Chabad movement moved forward. After 200 years of always having a charismatic Rebbe as their leader, they decided not to choose a successor to Menachem Mendel, who is still the Rebbe, but they figured out how to do without.
This was not obvious. At the time many knowledgeable observers were convinced the crises would bring Chabad down. Nor is the story over yet - it never is, so long as life goes on - and there still are fringe groups in Chabad who are convinced the Rebbe isn't dead, and much of the mainstream of Chabad still reveres him to an extent and with an intensity that makes the rest of us uncomfortable. Though their outward appearance is of Haredi Jews, the Haredi world by and large doesn't hold Chabad in high esteem, partly because of the messianism, but also because Chabad engages intensely with the non-Haredi world, which is the biggest no-no around.
In spite of all this, Chabad is one of the most interesting parts of the never-boring Jewish world. I would go so far as to speculate that it's one of the most important trends in the Jewish world, at least outside of Israel; even in Israel, where it must compete with an entire and very vital Jewish universe, it manages to hold its own ground.
The Forward has a mostly positive story about how Chabad is engaging Jewish students on American campuses; when you think of the many trends on campus, it's hard to find any fault with these folks whatsoever. The more the better, period: and apparently, indeed there are ever more of them.
The story of Chabad on campus, however, is merely a section of the larger story, of Chabad everywhere: the movement is setting up stations literally all over the world, where they offer a kosher Jewish environment and logistical support to whomever might need it. Israeli tourists (there are always Israeli tourists everywhere at any given moment, probably about 20 million of them) often plan their travel itineraries with an eye to these bases, and I don't mean only orthodox tourists; on the contrary, often it's the totally secular young backpackers. American Jews. Italian Jews. I recently encountered two young Bosnian Jews at a Chabad house to which they repair regularly to imbibe a bit of Jewish atmosphere. There's a flowering Chabad presence in Melbourne (two synagogues, inevitably) that once offered me a week's worth of Daf Yomi sessions away from home.
There's a theological depth to this which I won't go into, but there's also an earthy pragmatism: if you reach out to unengaged Jews often enough, some will reach back. Once they're in the fold, their ability to reach out will multiply the potency of the movement.
As I said: an interesting evolving story.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
This is It
Once in the late 1980s or thereabouts I read a vivid description by an American journalist - it may have been Thomas Friedman - about sitting in an event full of secular and probably lefty Israelis who were singing something with great fervor. When he asked he was told the song was Ein Li Eretz Acheret - I have no other country. He was deeply impressed.
Actually, there was a twist to the story he wasn't aware of (this is almost always the case with foreign reporters, even the best informed of them). It's a song of love for the homeland, yes, but a homeland which is changing, which needs to be woken, to return to its previous condition. So it's both a song of love and a protest, simultaneously.
It's a very 1980s song, in other words, for that was the decade when Israeli society came the closest to tearing itself apart since the early 1950s. There were multiplying fracture lines, and the arguments were vehement, and many of those singing the song with the greatest fervor were those who feared their beloved homeland was slipping away from them.
For all the shrillness of the argument that lead to Rabin's assassination in 1995, the dynamic was different, it wasn't as severe as the 1980s, and while this song was again sung fervently in the weeks after the assassination, other shirim were more important.
In 2004-5, as Sharon's government prepared to uproot 8,000 settlers, the opposite camp took up the same song with the mirror fervor.
Nowadays, however, it has settled to being what that foreign fellow thought he was seeing 30 years ago. Oh well: eventually he got it right.
Hebrew text.
English translation:
Actually, there was a twist to the story he wasn't aware of (this is almost always the case with foreign reporters, even the best informed of them). It's a song of love for the homeland, yes, but a homeland which is changing, which needs to be woken, to return to its previous condition. So it's both a song of love and a protest, simultaneously.
It's a very 1980s song, in other words, for that was the decade when Israeli society came the closest to tearing itself apart since the early 1950s. There were multiplying fracture lines, and the arguments were vehement, and many of those singing the song with the greatest fervor were those who feared their beloved homeland was slipping away from them.
For all the shrillness of the argument that lead to Rabin's assassination in 1995, the dynamic was different, it wasn't as severe as the 1980s, and while this song was again sung fervently in the weeks after the assassination, other shirim were more important.
In 2004-5, as Sharon's government prepared to uproot 8,000 settlers, the opposite camp took up the same song with the mirror fervor.
Nowadays, however, it has settled to being what that foreign fellow thought he was seeing 30 years ago. Oh well: eventually he got it right.
Hebrew text.
English translation:
I have no other country
even if my land is aflame
Just a word in Hebrew
pierces my veins and my soul -
With a painful body, with a hungry heart,
Here is my home.
I will not stay silent
because my country changed her face
I will not give up reminding her
And sing in her ears
until she will open her eyes
I have no other country
even if my land is aflame
Just a word in Hebrew
pierces my veins and my soul -
With a painful body, with a hungry heart,
Here is my home.
I won't be silent because my country
has changed her face.
I will not give up reminding her
And sing in her ears
until she will open her eyes
I have no other country
until she will renew her glorious days
Until she will open her eyes
I have no other country
even if my land is aflame
Just a word in Hebrew
pierces my veins and my soul -
With a painful body, with a hungry heart,
Here is my home.
With a painful body, with a hungry heart,
Here is my home.
Here's a video with the original version, posted in Russian, as sung by Gali Atari.
And here's a later version, by Gali Atari and Korin Alal, from an evening of commemoration for Ehud Manor, so sometime after his death in April 2005. Atari is older, but better, as sometimes happens.
The Watchdogs Go Mad
The New York Times supports the narrative that Israeli democracy is under siege. True, there's enough professional journalism in the item to pretend the journalist is merely reporting, not sharing the opinion, but just barely.
The evidence? One case in which the prime minister criticized an organization he felt was lying; one case of wrong arrest which was rectified the next day by a court; a single tax investigation which was then called off; the Im Tirzu campaign against the NIF (and note that Im Tirzu is now blandly described as "an ultra-Zionist nongovernmental organization", whatever that might mean); and worst of all, a parliamentary bill currently stuck and immobile which calls for transparency about foreign governments' support for political players in Israel (the horror!)
Here's a counter explanation. The people who staff the so-called "human rights organizations" at the far left of Israel's political spectrum - and they're political actors, there can be no doubt about it in spite of their endless protestations - are mostly thin-skinned partisans. They are deeply and profoundly convinced that their view of the world is the truth, the only truth and nothing but the truth, and that anyone who refuses to see the world as they do is either unintelligent, benighted, evil, or all of the above. Once you accept this rather strange axiom, you'll have no problem with identifying any counter claim or adverse position with the forces of evil, out to destroy the embattled and besieged voices of rationality justice and peace.
This explains how when they dish out endless fabrications, distortions, nasty allegations and radical positions, it's democracy at its finest; but whenever they're confronted it's a fundamental undermining of democracy, freedom, justice and all that is beautiful.
It's a frame of mind, not an intellectual exercise.
The evidence? One case in which the prime minister criticized an organization he felt was lying; one case of wrong arrest which was rectified the next day by a court; a single tax investigation which was then called off; the Im Tirzu campaign against the NIF (and note that Im Tirzu is now blandly described as "an ultra-Zionist nongovernmental organization", whatever that might mean); and worst of all, a parliamentary bill currently stuck and immobile which calls for transparency about foreign governments' support for political players in Israel (the horror!)
Here's a counter explanation. The people who staff the so-called "human rights organizations" at the far left of Israel's political spectrum - and they're political actors, there can be no doubt about it in spite of their endless protestations - are mostly thin-skinned partisans. They are deeply and profoundly convinced that their view of the world is the truth, the only truth and nothing but the truth, and that anyone who refuses to see the world as they do is either unintelligent, benighted, evil, or all of the above. Once you accept this rather strange axiom, you'll have no problem with identifying any counter claim or adverse position with the forces of evil, out to destroy the embattled and besieged voices of rationality justice and peace.
This explains how when they dish out endless fabrications, distortions, nasty allegations and radical positions, it's democracy at its finest; but whenever they're confronted it's a fundamental undermining of democracy, freedom, justice and all that is beautiful.
It's a frame of mind, not an intellectual exercise.
Collateral... What?
An organization called Wkilleaks.org has posted a 17-minute presentation about an incident in Baghdad in July 2007 in which 12 people were killed, including two Reuters staff, and two children were wounded.
The New York Times reports here, Wikileaks reports here (but with no specific link), and here's the video itself, which Wikileaks has titled "Collateral Murder":
It's a troubling story - on many levels.
First, the deaths. I don't see anyone arguing that the two Reuters staff, a reporter and a photographer, were engaged in anything illegal. Wikileaks says they were murdered, and that's not true, but they were killed while going about their daily business and were not engaged in warfare with anyone. Likewise the two wounded children.
It's a frustrating film, since contrary to its portrayal by Wikileaks, it's not clear what was going on. The context was the very successful Surge, in which American and Iraqi forces mostly halted an extremely vicious civil war, thereby saving countless lives. The film itself has two components: there's footage from an American helicopter circling over the scene before during and after the event, identifying a target, shooting, and directing American ground forces to the site. Interspersed into this raw footage are interpretive comments of Wikileaks, which are openly informed by a particular narrative. These comments tell us what we're seeing, not always convincingly, and also tell us what we're supposed to think about what we're seeing.
The military and political context, for example, is wholly absent in this framing. I don't mean this on a philosophical level, as in "the surge was a huge success and this is a regrettable incident in it". No, I mean we totally lack the framework in which the American forces were operating. What was the significance of spotting a group of men standing in the street in that part of Baghdad in July 2007, some of them armed. Was this typical? Unusual? Could it be ambiguous or was there only one plausible explanation? Was it likely that armed insurgents would mill around while an American helicopter hovered above? It seems a bit odd to me, but perhaps it wasn't odd at all. No-one's telling us about that part.
The film is black and white, and rather grainy. The Americans, however, were seeing the scene in natural color. Did this make them more confident about what they were seeing, and is it conceivable this confidence was misplaced (Is it possible a black and white film projects reality more accurately than five or six pairs of human eyes trained to be observing carefully?)
The NYT report alludes to a nearby firefight. How does that fit into the picture, and more important, how did it fit in at the time?
How come none of the men on the ground relate directly to the helicopters in any way? That aspect is truly weird. It's as if they're living their lives, and some omnipotent force in the heavens is intruding in a way they cannot see, foresee, understand or influence. Until that part is explained, we cannot even begin to decipher the scene. Sorry, I insist on that.
The Americans have an elaborate set of orders dictating when they fire, for how long and at what. Listen to the transcription and you'll identify at least three levels of authorization, perhaps more. There's the man firing, the man authorizing it, and someone higher, who's not at the scene, giving initial authorization. Once the first burst of fire is over, the entire process has to be repeated before the second. There's lots of deliberation going on, and interestingly, there's lots of time, too. It's not decisions being taken in fractions of seconds, as would happen in a ground firefight.
There was clearly a logic to firing at the van that pulls up and its occupants start to remove one of the wounded. For all we know, given the way the war was being waged, this logic could be easily defended. The film gives no inkling: the American troops don't need to discuss such matters, and the interpretation takes for granted that it's simply evil. There's a dissonance on this matter between the voices on the tape and the interpretation of it which is so enourmous as to render discussion impossible. Perhaps the Americans are callous killers shooting innocents - though if so, they've got a rather restrictive set of rules limiting themselves from application of force. Perhaps they're decent men concentrating on an unpleasant task which is a tiny part of making the world a better place. This 17-minute presentation clearly offers both possibilities, while making considerable efforts not only to obfuscate the contradiction but to ensure only one narrative is accepted.
Can the military defend itself - assuming it feels it acted properly? Not really. In order to do so, it would have to divulge lots of very specific operational information which would be extremely valuable to future enemies. Imagine a military force which knows exactly what it's adversaries' limitations are, all the details of its rules of engagement, and the thought process of its adversaries. A military planner's dream. Yet absent all this information, we are left with the suspicion that the military acted wrongly in this case, and when it tells us it investigated and found no wrongdoing, some will surmise there's a cover-up going on.
Sadly, the needs of a democracy for transparency, and the needs for a military in obscureness, while both are legitimate, really do contradict each other sometimes. You'd think any reasonable person could appreciate the problem; alas, you'd obviously be wrong.
Also, interpreting human action is complicated. Whoever claims otherwise, be they journalists, politicians, human rights activists, bloggers: they're all quacks. Serious scholars who spend their lives on slow, well-informed attempts, often get it wrong. The immediate-truth-brigade doesn't really stand a chance.
The New York Times reports here, Wikileaks reports here (but with no specific link), and here's the video itself, which Wikileaks has titled "Collateral Murder":
It's a troubling story - on many levels.
First, the deaths. I don't see anyone arguing that the two Reuters staff, a reporter and a photographer, were engaged in anything illegal. Wikileaks says they were murdered, and that's not true, but they were killed while going about their daily business and were not engaged in warfare with anyone. Likewise the two wounded children.
It's a frustrating film, since contrary to its portrayal by Wikileaks, it's not clear what was going on. The context was the very successful Surge, in which American and Iraqi forces mostly halted an extremely vicious civil war, thereby saving countless lives. The film itself has two components: there's footage from an American helicopter circling over the scene before during and after the event, identifying a target, shooting, and directing American ground forces to the site. Interspersed into this raw footage are interpretive comments of Wikileaks, which are openly informed by a particular narrative. These comments tell us what we're seeing, not always convincingly, and also tell us what we're supposed to think about what we're seeing.
The military and political context, for example, is wholly absent in this framing. I don't mean this on a philosophical level, as in "the surge was a huge success and this is a regrettable incident in it". No, I mean we totally lack the framework in which the American forces were operating. What was the significance of spotting a group of men standing in the street in that part of Baghdad in July 2007, some of them armed. Was this typical? Unusual? Could it be ambiguous or was there only one plausible explanation? Was it likely that armed insurgents would mill around while an American helicopter hovered above? It seems a bit odd to me, but perhaps it wasn't odd at all. No-one's telling us about that part.
The film is black and white, and rather grainy. The Americans, however, were seeing the scene in natural color. Did this make them more confident about what they were seeing, and is it conceivable this confidence was misplaced (Is it possible a black and white film projects reality more accurately than five or six pairs of human eyes trained to be observing carefully?)
The NYT report alludes to a nearby firefight. How does that fit into the picture, and more important, how did it fit in at the time?
How come none of the men on the ground relate directly to the helicopters in any way? That aspect is truly weird. It's as if they're living their lives, and some omnipotent force in the heavens is intruding in a way they cannot see, foresee, understand or influence. Until that part is explained, we cannot even begin to decipher the scene. Sorry, I insist on that.
The Americans have an elaborate set of orders dictating when they fire, for how long and at what. Listen to the transcription and you'll identify at least three levels of authorization, perhaps more. There's the man firing, the man authorizing it, and someone higher, who's not at the scene, giving initial authorization. Once the first burst of fire is over, the entire process has to be repeated before the second. There's lots of deliberation going on, and interestingly, there's lots of time, too. It's not decisions being taken in fractions of seconds, as would happen in a ground firefight.
There was clearly a logic to firing at the van that pulls up and its occupants start to remove one of the wounded. For all we know, given the way the war was being waged, this logic could be easily defended. The film gives no inkling: the American troops don't need to discuss such matters, and the interpretation takes for granted that it's simply evil. There's a dissonance on this matter between the voices on the tape and the interpretation of it which is so enourmous as to render discussion impossible. Perhaps the Americans are callous killers shooting innocents - though if so, they've got a rather restrictive set of rules limiting themselves from application of force. Perhaps they're decent men concentrating on an unpleasant task which is a tiny part of making the world a better place. This 17-minute presentation clearly offers both possibilities, while making considerable efforts not only to obfuscate the contradiction but to ensure only one narrative is accepted.
Can the military defend itself - assuming it feels it acted properly? Not really. In order to do so, it would have to divulge lots of very specific operational information which would be extremely valuable to future enemies. Imagine a military force which knows exactly what it's adversaries' limitations are, all the details of its rules of engagement, and the thought process of its adversaries. A military planner's dream. Yet absent all this information, we are left with the suspicion that the military acted wrongly in this case, and when it tells us it investigated and found no wrongdoing, some will surmise there's a cover-up going on.
Sadly, the needs of a democracy for transparency, and the needs for a military in obscureness, while both are legitimate, really do contradict each other sometimes. You'd think any reasonable person could appreciate the problem; alas, you'd obviously be wrong.
Also, interpreting human action is complicated. Whoever claims otherwise, be they journalists, politicians, human rights activists, bloggers: they're all quacks. Serious scholars who spend their lives on slow, well-informed attempts, often get it wrong. The immediate-truth-brigade doesn't really stand a chance.
Monday, April 5, 2010
First Banned Shir
1954. No-one knew Israel would be fighting wars for generations; it was reasonable to believe the one recently won had sufficed, even if the borders were not peaceful and the neighbors were anything but welcoming. Given this state of the matter, some folks went elsewhere to look for kicks.
Petra, for example. The unique Nabatian town carved into the red rock in southern Jordan, not that far east of Israel's border. You start at the border, cross the desert, climb a canyon, see the wonder of Petra and scurry back. The whole things takes, what, two days?
Eventually the Jordanians figured out what was going on, and its troops began ambushing the adventurers. I don't know how many young Israelis were killed, but some were. What had started out as an extreme lark was turning into a deadly stupid game.
At which point Arik Lavi came out with a haunting shir called Hasela Haadom, The Red Rock, about three young Israelis who made it to Petra but didn't make it back.
The authorities were horrified. It seemed to them the song was more likely than not to encourage additional daredevils. So they banned it. Being a democracy they couldn't make it illegal or anything, but since in those days all two radio channels (three?) were government controlled, the order went out that the song was not to be broadcast. (No, the was no television in Israel in the 1950s).
I don't know if it worked. Israelis apparently stopped going to Petra, for whatever reason: maybe their Jewish mothers read them the riot act. On the other hand, I can remember, some years later, the awe with which we kids talked about the mysterious banned song (by the time we were old enough to have entertained thought of going there, the world was a different place and it never occurred to us). After a while the ban faded, and anyway, long before You-tube, no-one would have dreamed of asking the government what they thought about a song anyway.
Though in the meantime there was one other attempt to ban a song; that story was more dramatic and complex. Perhaps some other day...
Words:
Across mountains and the desert
the stories say, there's a place
that a living person has not yet returned from,
and it's called the red rock.
Oh, the red - red - rock.
Three went on the way with the sunset,
against the the mountains' red scorching,
an old dream, a map and a water-bottle
they did take to the red rock.
Oh, the red - red - rock.
The first went (as) navigator, lifting his face,
looking at the stars up high,
but the view that his eyes saw -
was the view of the red rock
Oh, the red - red - rock.
Surely, they encamped some time
between stones,
one said, like smiting a dream:
I see - its face is white.
His mates answered: the red rock.
Oh, the red - red - rock.
Petra, for example. The unique Nabatian town carved into the red rock in southern Jordan, not that far east of Israel's border. You start at the border, cross the desert, climb a canyon, see the wonder of Petra and scurry back. The whole things takes, what, two days?
Eventually the Jordanians figured out what was going on, and its troops began ambushing the adventurers. I don't know how many young Israelis were killed, but some were. What had started out as an extreme lark was turning into a deadly stupid game.
At which point Arik Lavi came out with a haunting shir called Hasela Haadom, The Red Rock, about three young Israelis who made it to Petra but didn't make it back.
The authorities were horrified. It seemed to them the song was more likely than not to encourage additional daredevils. So they banned it. Being a democracy they couldn't make it illegal or anything, but since in those days all two radio channels (three?) were government controlled, the order went out that the song was not to be broadcast. (No, the was no television in Israel in the 1950s).
I don't know if it worked. Israelis apparently stopped going to Petra, for whatever reason: maybe their Jewish mothers read them the riot act. On the other hand, I can remember, some years later, the awe with which we kids talked about the mysterious banned song (by the time we were old enough to have entertained thought of going there, the world was a different place and it never occurred to us). After a while the ban faded, and anyway, long before You-tube, no-one would have dreamed of asking the government what they thought about a song anyway.
Though in the meantime there was one other attempt to ban a song; that story was more dramatic and complex. Perhaps some other day...
Words:
Across mountains and the desert
the stories say, there's a place
that a living person has not yet returned from,
and it's called the red rock.
Oh, the red - red - rock.
Three went on the way with the sunset,
against the the mountains' red scorching,
an old dream, a map and a water-bottle
they did take to the red rock.
Oh, the red - red - rock.
The first went (as) navigator, lifting his face,
looking at the stars up high,
but the view that his eyes saw -
was the view of the red rock
Oh, the red - red - rock.
Surely, they encamped some time
between stones,
one said, like smiting a dream:
I see - its face is white.
His mates answered: the red rock.
Oh, the red - red - rock.
Has Obama Given Up Too?
The Wall Street Journal's editorial opines that Obama knows he can't stop the Iranian nuclear project, and has given up trying. Their line of argumentation is a bit different from Greg Sheridan in Australia, but the thesis is the same.
I continue not to have enough insider information to know. On the other hand, Jeffrey Goldberg, through whom I reached this item, claims that
You usually do better than that, Jeffrey.
I continue not to have enough insider information to know. On the other hand, Jeffrey Goldberg, through whom I reached this item, claims that
On the other hand, no one, IMHO, has made a convincing argument that a military strike could, in fact, work.Which puzzles me a bit, first, because I don't see why a military machine such as the US has couldn't put the Iranian program back many many years. It should be considerably easier than, say, subduing a civil war in Iraq: You need to destroy a limited number of hard targets, that's all. Second, because if it can't, why are American taxpayers spending so much money on it? Mostly, however, I'm puzzled because Goldberg seems to feel that such military capabilites should be posted on CNN or somewhere, for everyone to see them.
You usually do better than that, Jeffrey.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Only in Israel
When did shirim Ivri'im become shirim Ivri'im? By which I mean, when did they take on the significant role they eventually acquired? I'm not certain - and anyway, there are a number of roles, and each has its own time-line. Take our shir of the day, Rak BaYisrael (Only in Israel). It was written and recorded in 1968, I think. The lyrics are by Ehud Manor (we'll be hearing quite a bit about him), the melody is by Nurit Hirsh, and the recording is by the Navy Band. Personally, I wouldn't put it particularly high on my list of preferences, though it's definitely cute. It doesn't fit in the coping-with-bereavement strand of shirim: it's a goofy song, nor in the love-of-the-land strand (ditto). I'm posting it because Alex Stein requested it, and there-in lies a tale, I think.
Alex is an Israeli who wrote a blog for a while as he wandered around India. in his late 20's, he's quite a bit younger than I. From his occasional comments on this blog he comes off as considerably to my political left. I haven't read much of his blog, but I expect he's secular, and lives in or around Tel Aviv. (He'll correct me where I'm wrong). And yet, no sooner had I announced this project of posting shirim, but he requested this particular one. It was written long before he was born, it can't much relate to his day-to-day life because it's so hopelessly anachronistic, yet he and I both immediately recognized it and hummed it to ourselves.
So this particular shir is an example of the broader these-are-the-songs-all-Israelis-recognize category. The broad category that goes part of the way to define the cultural baggage that automatically goes into being an Israeli, no matter who they are. (Probably including the Haredi, and likely including even the Arabs).
Words: (follow the link, since they've only put up a picture of the words).
Alex is an Israeli who wrote a blog for a while as he wandered around India. in his late 20's, he's quite a bit younger than I. From his occasional comments on this blog he comes off as considerably to my political left. I haven't read much of his blog, but I expect he's secular, and lives in or around Tel Aviv. (He'll correct me where I'm wrong). And yet, no sooner had I announced this project of posting shirim, but he requested this particular one. It was written long before he was born, it can't much relate to his day-to-day life because it's so hopelessly anachronistic, yet he and I both immediately recognized it and hummed it to ourselves.
So this particular shir is an example of the broader these-are-the-songs-all-Israelis-recognize category. The broad category that goes part of the way to define the cultural baggage that automatically goes into being an Israeli, no matter who they are. (Probably including the Haredi, and likely including even the Arabs).
Words: (follow the link, since they've only put up a picture of the words).
The American President and Israeli Settlements
C-Span seems to have a new online video library. A valuable resource indeed.
For example, here's an American president publicly going on record with positions the present president pretends never existed.
For example, here's an American president publicly going on record with positions the present president pretends never existed.
Has Obama Given Up?
Greg Sheridan, in far-away Australia, reads the tea leaves and learns that Obama has reconciled himself to Iran's going nuclear; his wild over-reaction to Israeli building in East Jerusalem is a ploy to isolate Israel to such an extent it won't even dream of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.
US President Barack Obama has decided to abandon any serious effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He is determined instead to live with a nuclear Iran, by containment and, if possible, negotiation.
This is the shifting tectonic plate in the Middle East.
This is the giant story of the past few weeks which the world has largely missed, distracted by the theatre of the absurd of Obama's contrived and mock confrontation with Israel over 1600 apartments to be built in three years' time in a Jewish suburb in East Jerusalem.
Iran is the only semi-intelligible explanation for Obama's bizarre over-reaction against the Israelis.
I don't know if this is true - how could I? Except the part about how Obama calculated his over-reaction to Israeli actions which his administration had previously agreed to: that part everyone could see without recourse to classified documents and secret discussions. Still, it's as likely as any other interpretation swirling around.
Dead Boy Walking
Last week some official in the Hamas health ministry in Gaza announced that Israel had shot and killed a 15-year-old, whom they duly named so there'd be no mistake. One assumes they had seen his dead body, or participated in his funeral, or something.
On Saturday he came home, unscathed. Apparently he'd tried to cross the border to Egypt (not Israel), but then turned back.
Hard to believe, huh?
On Saturday he came home, unscathed. Apparently he'd tried to cross the border to Egypt (not Israel), but then turned back.
Hard to believe, huh?
Friday, April 2, 2010
Bab elWad
Many shirim ivri'im deal with bereavement. The mother of them all is Bab elWad. Bab elWad is the Arab name for the narrow pass when the road to Jerusalem first enters the Judean Hills on its way up from the coast: a perfect place to block traffic, if you're of that mind. Which is precisely what the Palestinian's decided to do in the early months of 1948, as the British control of Mandatory Palestine was winding down: bring the Jewish majority in Jerusalem to starvation. I suppose the assumption was that they'd then pick up and leave or something like that. Today this would be a major breach of international law and all that, but in 1948 it wasn't anything special. The British allowed it to happen, but the Hagana didn't. Eventually a second road was paved, and then the Palestinians villages were conquered and the threat removed, but for a while in early 1948 100,000 Jewish civilians in Jerusalem were supplied by occasional convoys which managed to shoot their way through the pass. Remnants of the vehicles which didn't make it are still scattered along the roadside to remind us not to take things for granted.
Words:
Here I am passing, standing by the stone.
An asphalt road, rocks and ridges.
Day goes down slowly, sea-wind blows
Light of a first star, over Beit Maschir.
Bab-el-wad,
Do remember our names forever,
Convoys broke through, on the way to the City.
Our deads lay on the road edges.
The iron skeleton is silent like my comrade.
Here pitch and lead fumed under the sun,
Here nights passed with fire and knives.
Here sorrow and glory live together
With a burnt armoured car and the name of an unknown.
Bab-el-wad
And I walk, passing here silently,
And I remember them, one by one.
Here we fought together on cliffs and boulders
Here we were one family.
Bab-el-wad
A spring day will come, the cyclamens will bloom,
Red of anemone on the mountain and on the slope.
He, who will go on the road we went,
He will not forget us, Bab-el-wad.
Haim Guri (born 1923) wrote the song; we'll talk about him later. It has been sung over the years by lots of singers and groups, but here's an old recording by the original, Yaffa Yarkoni. Yarkoni, born in 1925, was widowed in WW2 when her husband, Yossef Gutstein, was killed fighting for the British. She eventually became famous as "the singer of all the wars", since she sang in and about all of them until the 1980s at least. (She remarried, and one of her daughters writes for Haaretz.
And here's a much later recording, by Shlomo Gronich. More about him some other day, when I write about the Ethiopian immigrants, perhaps.
Words:
Here I am passing, standing by the stone.
An asphalt road, rocks and ridges.
Day goes down slowly, sea-wind blows
Light of a first star, over Beit Maschir.
Bab-el-wad,
Do remember our names forever,
Convoys broke through, on the way to the City.
Our deads lay on the road edges.
The iron skeleton is silent like my comrade.
Here pitch and lead fumed under the sun,
Here nights passed with fire and knives.
Here sorrow and glory live together
With a burnt armoured car and the name of an unknown.
Bab-el-wad
And I walk, passing here silently,
And I remember them, one by one.
Here we fought together on cliffs and boulders
Here we were one family.
Bab-el-wad
A spring day will come, the cyclamens will bloom,
Red of anemone on the mountain and on the slope.
He, who will go on the road we went,
He will not forget us, Bab-el-wad.
Haim Guri (born 1923) wrote the song; we'll talk about him later. It has been sung over the years by lots of singers and groups, but here's an old recording by the original, Yaffa Yarkoni. Yarkoni, born in 1925, was widowed in WW2 when her husband, Yossef Gutstein, was killed fighting for the British. She eventually became famous as "the singer of all the wars", since she sang in and about all of them until the 1980s at least. (She remarried, and one of her daughters writes for Haaretz.
And here's a much later recording, by Shlomo Gronich. More about him some other day, when I write about the Ethiopian immigrants, perhaps.
Think Tanks as a Continuation of Politics
Barry Rubin has a story about how the Obama administration is preparing to change American policy on Hizballah and engage them in talks; he himself has been invited to participate in preparing the ground, but prefers to spill the beans.
I'm not enough of an insider to know. The interesting part of the story is actually the glimpse it gives us regular folks about how such policy changes are engineered, and the role played by think tanks, which are given a goal which needs to be academically justified, and duly produce a report coincidentally recommending just what someone was hoping for.
Do you think that's possible?
I'm not enough of an insider to know. The interesting part of the story is actually the glimpse it gives us regular folks about how such policy changes are engineered, and the role played by think tanks, which are given a goal which needs to be academically justified, and duly produce a report coincidentally recommending just what someone was hoping for.
Do you think that's possible?
Fayyad on Palestinian Independence
Akiva Eldar, always certain the Arabs are eager for peace and the Israeli Right is against, interviews West-Bank Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. As you'd expect, it's all nice and positive. True, Eldar asks no hard questions except one ("what about the incitement"), so Fayyad has no need to respond to them (and his response to the incitement question is, how to put it, inadequate).
Still, were it possible to have a peaceful sovereign Palestine in less than two years, alongside Israel, who'd argue? If, mind you.
Still, were it possible to have a peaceful sovereign Palestine in less than two years, alongside Israel, who'd argue? If, mind you.
Chofim
Yesterday I linked to Hannah Szenes' poem about walkng on the beach, so that led rather obviously to the shir titled Beaches (Chofim). I fear many of the shirim we'll be encountering will be a bit heavy on history, since much of the canon is; all the more reason to demonstrate that some of it is simply poetry+moving music=popular songs.
Chofim is sort of a love song, but mostly it's about the pain of love lost. It was written by Natan Yonatan (1923-2004), one of the most prolific authors of shirim - hundreds of his poems were put to music; this is one of the more famous of them. The music is by Nachum Heiman (born 1934), also one of the most popular creators of shirim.
Nycerbarb was so helpful as to point us at this website which offers translations of shirim, so here are the words of Chofim:
חופים הם לפעמים געגועים לנחל.
ראיתי פעם חוף
שנחל עזבו
עם לב שבור של חול ואבן.
והאדם, והאדם הוא לפעמים גם כן יכול
להישאר נטוש ובלי כוחות
ממש כמו חוף.
גם הצדפים
כמו חופים, כמו הרוח
גם הצדפים הם לפעמים געגועים
לבית שתמיד אהבנו
אשר היה ורק הים
שר לבדו שם את שיריו.
כך בין צדפי ליבו של האדם שרים לו נעוריו.
Shores are sometimes yearning to the river.
I once saw a shore
That the river had abandoned
With a broken heart of sand and stone
And man, and man
Can sometimes also end up
Abandoned and without strength, just like a shore.
Also shells,
Just like shores and the wind
Also shells are sometimes yearning
The home we have always loved
When it was and only the sea
Sings there by itself its songs
Thus, between the shellsof man's heart
his youth sings to him.
The earliest version of the shir (I think) was done by Chava Alberstein (born 1947), in about 1970
Alberstein is one of the most important Israeli singers, and she's been creative since the mid 1960s. I expect we'll meet her again in this series.
Then we've got this version, by Lahakat HaNachal, from 1970 or '71. Lahakat HaNachal means the military band of the Nachal brigade, and this particular group was one of the most important, and produced many long-standing creators. This particular clip, filmed on the shore of the Dead Sea, focuses on Yardena Arazi (Born 1951), who is still creative tho not of Alberstein's stature. The idiotic looking chap behind her is Efraim Shamir, who was later a member of the fantastic Kaveret group, about whom I'll have to write some other time. By then he didn't look quite so silly anymore.
Chofim is sort of a love song, but mostly it's about the pain of love lost. It was written by Natan Yonatan (1923-2004), one of the most prolific authors of shirim - hundreds of his poems were put to music; this is one of the more famous of them. The music is by Nachum Heiman (born 1934), also one of the most popular creators of shirim.
Nycerbarb was so helpful as to point us at this website which offers translations of shirim, so here are the words of Chofim:
חופים הם לפעמים געגועים לנחל.
ראיתי פעם חוף
שנחל עזבו
עם לב שבור של חול ואבן.
והאדם, והאדם הוא לפעמים גם כן יכול
להישאר נטוש ובלי כוחות
ממש כמו חוף.
גם הצדפים
כמו חופים, כמו הרוח
גם הצדפים הם לפעמים געגועים
לבית שתמיד אהבנו
אשר היה ורק הים
שר לבדו שם את שיריו.
כך בין צדפי ליבו של האדם שרים לו נעוריו.
Shores are sometimes yearning to the river.
I once saw a shore
That the river had abandoned
With a broken heart of sand and stone
And man, and man
Can sometimes also end up
Abandoned and without strength, just like a shore.
Also shells,
Just like shores and the wind
Also shells are sometimes yearning
The home we have always loved
When it was and only the sea
Sings there by itself its songs
Thus, between the shellsof man's heart
his youth sings to him.
The earliest version of the shir (I think) was done by Chava Alberstein (born 1947), in about 1970
Alberstein is one of the most important Israeli singers, and she's been creative since the mid 1960s. I expect we'll meet her again in this series.
Then we've got this version, by Lahakat HaNachal, from 1970 or '71. Lahakat HaNachal means the military band of the Nachal brigade, and this particular group was one of the most important, and produced many long-standing creators. This particular clip, filmed on the shore of the Dead Sea, focuses on Yardena Arazi (Born 1951), who is still creative tho not of Alberstein's stature. The idiotic looking chap behind her is Efraim Shamir, who was later a member of the fantastic Kaveret group, about whom I'll have to write some other time. By then he didn't look quite so silly anymore.
How Serious a Man?
We took advantage of the semi-holiday break and went to see the Coen Brother's "A Serious Man". It's well made, but mostly puzzling. All the characters are grotesque characters. Segments of the film are in Hebrew (well, sort-of Hebrew), some of it's Yiddish, and none of it is particularly convincing. Watching it with an Israeli audience, however, made for an unusual experience. After the screening I chatted briefly with an elderly acquaintance, a deeply religious man of much Jewish learning and very little general education. He thought it was great: "Such self humor!"
I don't know what the Coen brothers thought they were telling, I haven't any idea how the film is viewed by most of the people who saw it, and I'm reasonably certain this audience saw a different film than most.
I don't know what the Coen brothers thought they were telling, I haven't any idea how the film is viewed by most of the people who saw it, and I'm reasonably certain this audience saw a different film than most.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
New Thread: Shirim Ivri'im
Songs - or are they poems? - are an extremely important part of Israeli history and culture. There is an ever-growing canon of songs, called Shirim Ivri'im (simply: Hebrew songs), without which one cannot understand how Israelis tick. Since the songs Israelis sing are so crucial, it has long been clear to me one way to tell the evolving story of Israel would be by following these shirim.
This is one of the many books I'd like to write some day, but probably won't.
Yesterday my daughter and I decided it would be a nice idea to write a daily blog post introducing a shir each day from now until Independence Day, in three weeks. We decided to be post-modernist about it (though I mostly agree with Sergio that post modernism is a pernicious invention), by which I mean there will be no attempt to be systematic.
Halicha LeKeisaria - The Walk to Cesarea- was written before the phenomenon of Shirim Ivri'im was invented. The author was Hannah Szenes, 1921-1944. Szenes was born in Hungary, escaped Europe and moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1939, where she settled at the kibbutz of Sdot Yam, a fisherman kibbutz south of Haifa. In 1944 she parachuted into Yugoslavia, crossed the border into Hungary, was arrested, tortured, tried and executed by the Hungarian Fascists. She left behind a number of notebooks with a diary and some poems.
I have no pretensions to be able to translate poetry. Halicha leKeisaria is about a walk along the beach, the beauty of nature, and the yearning that it never end. Szenes wrote this poem shortly before she left, and it all ended.
This version is by Netanella, born in Tel Aviv in 1954 to parents from Uzbekistan. It was recorded in the mid 1970s (my guess: 1974).
Then there's this version. It is by the Breira haTiv'it group, in the late 1970s. HaBreira haTiv'it were (and still are) one of the most interesting creators of Israeli music. They use oriental music (which means, Arab music), sometimes for shirim of their own creation, and sometimes to rework Western music into the Arab format. That's what this one is:
This is one of the many books I'd like to write some day, but probably won't.
Yesterday my daughter and I decided it would be a nice idea to write a daily blog post introducing a shir each day from now until Independence Day, in three weeks. We decided to be post-modernist about it (though I mostly agree with Sergio that post modernism is a pernicious invention), by which I mean there will be no attempt to be systematic.
Halicha LeKeisaria - The Walk to Cesarea- was written before the phenomenon of Shirim Ivri'im was invented. The author was Hannah Szenes, 1921-1944. Szenes was born in Hungary, escaped Europe and moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1939, where she settled at the kibbutz of Sdot Yam, a fisherman kibbutz south of Haifa. In 1944 she parachuted into Yugoslavia, crossed the border into Hungary, was arrested, tortured, tried and executed by the Hungarian Fascists. She left behind a number of notebooks with a diary and some poems.
I have no pretensions to be able to translate poetry. Halicha leKeisaria is about a walk along the beach, the beauty of nature, and the yearning that it never end. Szenes wrote this poem shortly before she left, and it all ended.
This version is by Netanella, born in Tel Aviv in 1954 to parents from Uzbekistan. It was recorded in the mid 1970s (my guess: 1974).
Then there's this version. It is by the Breira haTiv'it group, in the late 1970s. HaBreira haTiv'it were (and still are) one of the most interesting creators of Israeli music. They use oriental music (which means, Arab music), sometimes for shirim of their own creation, and sometimes to rework Western music into the Arab format. That's what this one is:
Then and Now, Better or Worse
A number of readers took my post on Meir Ariel's "Surviving Pharaoh" song to be a comparison between the early 1980s and now.
This actually wasn't my intention, which was rather to say that long-term perspective is important and quite comforting. We've gotten out of lots of tight spots, and today's isn't even that bad. However, since the comparison was made, I might as well address it directly.
Since the early 1980s the Soviet Union has disappeared, removing the superpower that armed most of our enemies. The disappearance also enabled more than a million Soviet Jews to move to Israel, greatly strengthening us and transforming us in many ways, most of them positive or extremely positive. Nor has the transformation exhausted itself yet.
The Oslo process, tho disastrous in many ways, clarified to Israeli society that it had irrevocably abandoned the dream of controlling all of what was once Mandatory Palestine, while the Palestinians had not abandoned the mirror dream. This dual understanding gave Israel a political coherence and broad consensus which are enormously powerful. The reason we never blinked during the black years of 2001-2003, as the Palestinians did their best to bring us to our knees by systematically murdering civilians, was this re-affirmed understanding of the fundamental dynamic, in which we are right but willing to compromise, while the Palestinians wish us gone and are not willing to compromise.
The economic conditions are incomparable. 25 years ago Israel was limping along; today it's an economic powerhouse (well, compared to its tiny size).
Then there's the relation to the world. In the 1980s Israel was hated by the Arab world, the Communist world, and the so-called Third World. (The Economist once quipped that the Non-Aligned Nations lost the ability to be non-aligned against the West once the Soviet Union was gone). Today Israel is still hated by the Arab world, even by most of the Muslim world, though the animosity has its gradations, and manipulating them can be useful. The Soviet world is no more, but some parts of it are staunchly pro-Israel (Poland, say, or the Czech Republic), or cynically so, such as Russia itself. Much of the Third World deals with us on Realpolitik tracks, such as the Brazilian president, hardly a good friend, who recently visited us for his own purposes. The two most significant changes, however, have been the relations with China and India, both of which are vastly better now than then. Both are ancient civilizations which spent their first two or three millennia having no interaction with the Jews - and thus, no built-in anti Jewish conditioning.
Seen in historical terms, rather than news-cycle ones, the decline of Europe and the rise of India and China is probably a fine thing for Israel and the Jews, so long as we take advantage of them - and we seem to be aware of this.
This actually wasn't my intention, which was rather to say that long-term perspective is important and quite comforting. We've gotten out of lots of tight spots, and today's isn't even that bad. However, since the comparison was made, I might as well address it directly.
Since the early 1980s the Soviet Union has disappeared, removing the superpower that armed most of our enemies. The disappearance also enabled more than a million Soviet Jews to move to Israel, greatly strengthening us and transforming us in many ways, most of them positive or extremely positive. Nor has the transformation exhausted itself yet.
The Oslo process, tho disastrous in many ways, clarified to Israeli society that it had irrevocably abandoned the dream of controlling all of what was once Mandatory Palestine, while the Palestinians had not abandoned the mirror dream. This dual understanding gave Israel a political coherence and broad consensus which are enormously powerful. The reason we never blinked during the black years of 2001-2003, as the Palestinians did their best to bring us to our knees by systematically murdering civilians, was this re-affirmed understanding of the fundamental dynamic, in which we are right but willing to compromise, while the Palestinians wish us gone and are not willing to compromise.
The economic conditions are incomparable. 25 years ago Israel was limping along; today it's an economic powerhouse (well, compared to its tiny size).
Then there's the relation to the world. In the 1980s Israel was hated by the Arab world, the Communist world, and the so-called Third World. (The Economist once quipped that the Non-Aligned Nations lost the ability to be non-aligned against the West once the Soviet Union was gone). Today Israel is still hated by the Arab world, even by most of the Muslim world, though the animosity has its gradations, and manipulating them can be useful. The Soviet world is no more, but some parts of it are staunchly pro-Israel (Poland, say, or the Czech Republic), or cynically so, such as Russia itself. Much of the Third World deals with us on Realpolitik tracks, such as the Brazilian president, hardly a good friend, who recently visited us for his own purposes. The two most significant changes, however, have been the relations with China and India, both of which are vastly better now than then. Both are ancient civilizations which spent their first two or three millennia having no interaction with the Jews - and thus, no built-in anti Jewish conditioning.
Seen in historical terms, rather than news-cycle ones, the decline of Europe and the rise of India and China is probably a fine thing for Israel and the Jews, so long as we take advantage of them - and we seem to be aware of this.
Tactic or Strategy?
Barak Ravid reports that the Obama administration is seeking a 4-month building freeze in East Jerusalem, in return for direct talks between Israel and the PA, rather than the silly proximity talks that had or had not been about to start.
If it's a tactic, I'm in favor. Four months isn't very long, and in real talks it will take less than that to demonstrate that the Palestinians have no interest in reaching an agreement, which is the fundamental fact of the matter. (Though it would also allow them the opportunity of proving us wrong, which would be great).
However, Ravid's report also includes this
This raises the issue of the American agenda. If it's getting talks started once again, so as to see where they lead, that's one thing. If it's to force the Palestinian agenda on Israel, that's another matter.
If it's a tactic, I'm in favor. Four months isn't very long, and in real talks it will take less than that to demonstrate that the Palestinians have no interest in reaching an agreement, which is the fundamental fact of the matter. (Though it would also allow them the opportunity of proving us wrong, which would be great).
However, Ravid's report also includes this
Haaretz reported on Monday that the U.S. administration had further demands regarding East Jerusalem including the reopening of a Palestinian commercial office there, as well as an end to both the razing of Palestinian homes and the evacuation of Palestinians from their homes.No homes have been razed for many months, so that demand smacks of the "when did you last beat your wife" trick, except that municipalities enforcing zoning laws are not quite as pernicious as beating one's wife. The reopening of a Palestinian office in Jerusalem, however, is the exact opposite of a freeze. In a freeze everything stops so as to allow negotiators to examine the issue calmly. Opening Palestinian offices where they currently aren't is precisely the opposite.
This raises the issue of the American agenda. If it's getting talks started once again, so as to see where they lead, that's one thing. If it's to force the Palestinian agenda on Israel, that's another matter.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Historical Perspective
The first part of the 1980s were hard times in Israel. Menachem Begin's Likud won the 1981 election by a whisker, but only after an acrimonious election campaign that came close to tearing apart Israeli society. There was a war of no consensus from 1982 that kept on getting worse. The economy was in shambles, and that, too, kept on getting worse, eventually approaching Argentinian-style inflation. Part of the time the relations with the American administration were considerably worse than what they are today, or at any rate certainly no better (hard to believe, huh?).
That was the background for Meir Ariel's song about Pharaoh. Ostensibly, it was a series of kvetches about his upstairs neighbor, the nasty bank clerk, and other woes - except for the refrain:
- Aval avarnu et Par'o, na'avor gam et ze. (We survived Pharaoh, we'll survive this also).
It was an instant and eternal hit. Precisely because it didn't specifically kvetch about Reagen, say, or Begin, or the minister of finance (there were lots of them in those days, coming and going all the time), it never lost its immediacy; by focusing on the original disaster, from which we eventually so spectacularly escaped, it was more comforting than some of the subsequent calamities. "We survived the Cossacks", while true, would have had a less triumphant ring. And it certainly was triumphant, in a kvetch-infused sort of way.
Ariel is unfortunately no longer with us, but the sentiment is still just fine. Just fine for this day of preparations before Pessach, just fine for the American's new boss, just fine as a summary of the past and present.
Avarnu et Par'o, na'avor gam et ze.
That was the background for Meir Ariel's song about Pharaoh. Ostensibly, it was a series of kvetches about his upstairs neighbor, the nasty bank clerk, and other woes - except for the refrain:
- Aval avarnu et Par'o, na'avor gam et ze. (We survived Pharaoh, we'll survive this also).
It was an instant and eternal hit. Precisely because it didn't specifically kvetch about Reagen, say, or Begin, or the minister of finance (there were lots of them in those days, coming and going all the time), it never lost its immediacy; by focusing on the original disaster, from which we eventually so spectacularly escaped, it was more comforting than some of the subsequent calamities. "We survived the Cossacks", while true, would have had a less triumphant ring. And it certainly was triumphant, in a kvetch-infused sort of way.
Ariel is unfortunately no longer with us, but the sentiment is still just fine. Just fine for this day of preparations before Pessach, just fine for the American's new boss, just fine as a summary of the past and present.
Avarnu et Par'o, na'avor gam et ze.
The Dove Flyer
The first of Eli Amir's sort-of-biographical novels, Mafriach Hayonim, has finally been translated to English (available only at Amazon.uk, with the title The Dove Flyer).
Amir, a prominent figure of the Left, was born in Baghdad and came to Israel in 1949. This is the fascinating story of the last years of a Jewish community which existed for 2,500 uninterrupted years. It spans the period of 1941-1948, between the Nazi-inspired mass pogrom of 1941 and the exodus-expulsion of some 200,000 Iraqi Jews after the creation of the State of Israel. It's the story of the diversity of Baghdad's Jews and the implacable hatred of the Iraqis towards them. It's a story of terror, of hope, and of mass uprooting. It's a story of Baghdad, a live city the author still sorely misses, though he hasn't been there for a lifetime. It's not the Baghdad you read about in the newspapers. It's a memorable story. If you can't read it in Hebrew, try the English.
Amir, a prominent figure of the Left, was born in Baghdad and came to Israel in 1949. This is the fascinating story of the last years of a Jewish community which existed for 2,500 uninterrupted years. It spans the period of 1941-1948, between the Nazi-inspired mass pogrom of 1941 and the exodus-expulsion of some 200,000 Iraqi Jews after the creation of the State of Israel. It's the story of the diversity of Baghdad's Jews and the implacable hatred of the Iraqis towards them. It's a story of terror, of hope, and of mass uprooting. It's a story of Baghdad, a live city the author still sorely misses, though he hasn't been there for a lifetime. It's not the Baghdad you read about in the newspapers. It's a memorable story. If you can't read it in Hebrew, try the English.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Peace With Whom, Exactly?
Sulzman, a recent reader who attributes positions to me which I don't hold, comments:
In a truly weird development, Fake Ibrahim supplies the answer, though of course his intentions were rather the opposite:
Yet the mystifying part of the story is that uninformed and malicious Fake Ibrahim gets it, while Sulzamn, who was here not long ago, and Friedman, whose profession it ought to be to know better, don't. Fake Ibrahim understands that we can't be enjoying the lack of peace and the losses of life this requires, while Friedman thinks
Friedman's column - like most of the discourse about all the things the Israelis "must understand", is arrogant, uninformed, unintelligent, and coming from someone with his pay-grade, offensive. Israeli cab drivers and tomato merchants are better informed about the details of this area: and they have to be, since it's their lives, or the lives of their children, which will be lost if the wrong decisions are made - or more accurate, whenever the wrong decisions are made.
Newsflash for the ignoramusi, from the White House down: we understand our situation, and don't much like it. Sadly, all possible alternatives at this stage are worse. Those of you with true power, if there are any of you, might try to help by convincing the Palestinians to make a deal. But if you don't have that power - and you probably don't - then at least stop preachifying. It makes you look unserious.
As a former Lefty and current centrist, it pains me that you've got to go all the way to The Weekly Standard to find thoughtful descriptions of how destructive the Obama policies are, and how dangerous for the people who live here, but there you have it. Here. Then again, perhaps you don't need to go to the Weekly Standard. Simply read the mainstream, PA- ("Moderate")-controlled press. Here, translated into English.
What exactly don't you think Obama doesn't get about Israelis? I think he gets Israelis exactly right, which is that they've become complacent about the peace process, and perhaps understandably so, given developments over the last 10 years. But for the U.S. that's a big problem. I thought this article by Tom Friedman today pretty much got it right.The Friedman column is here, and indeed makes a similar point: that Israelis no longer care about making peace.
In a truly weird development, Fake Ibrahim supplies the answer, though of course his intentions were rather the opposite:
One year after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, people you were acquainted with continue to die at the border. In the past two weeks a foreign worker and three soldiers were killed: compare that to less than 30 Israeli deaths in the whole Qassam years. It looks like Cast Lead was a failure. How many Peretz's are you prepared to sacrifice before you admit that force alone won't bring you security?Whether the Gaza Operation was successful or not, it's still too early to know. It brought a year of calm, that's beyond argument; what happens now we don't know, but can hope that the calm will return. In either case, the answer to your question, Fake Ibrahim, is that we'll sacrifice as many people as we need to sacrifice, and for as long as it takes even if it be another century or two, but we won't give up. Or to put it more bluntly, we'll make every reasonable effort not to sacrifice anyone, but if needs be, we'll keep at it until the Palestinians decide the conflict is no longer worth the sacrifices it demands of them.
Yet the mystifying part of the story is that uninformed and malicious Fake Ibrahim gets it, while Sulzamn, who was here not long ago, and Friedman, whose profession it ought to be to know better, don't. Fake Ibrahim understands that we can't be enjoying the lack of peace and the losses of life this requires, while Friedman thinks
To put it another way, the collapse of the peace process, combined with the rise of the wall, combined with the rise of the Web, has made peacemaking with Palestinians much less of a necessity for Israel and much more of a hobby. Consciously or unconsciously, a lot more Israelis seem to believe they really can have it all: a Jewish state, a democratic state and a state in all of the Land of Israel, including the West Bank — and peace.Does the name Ehud Olmert ring a bell? He won an election here in 2006 by promising we'd leave the West Bank even without peace, and then in 2008 (September 2008: that's all of 18 months ago) offered the "moderate" Palestinians not only 100% of the West Bank but even East Jerusalem. The response? There never was one. Abu Mazen never responded, hoping (correctly, as it turned out) that Obama would be elected and he'd wring more concessions from Israel. (Well, he was right about Obama. It remains to see if Obama manages to deliver: I expect not).
Friedman's column - like most of the discourse about all the things the Israelis "must understand", is arrogant, uninformed, unintelligent, and coming from someone with his pay-grade, offensive. Israeli cab drivers and tomato merchants are better informed about the details of this area: and they have to be, since it's their lives, or the lives of their children, which will be lost if the wrong decisions are made - or more accurate, whenever the wrong decisions are made.
Newsflash for the ignoramusi, from the White House down: we understand our situation, and don't much like it. Sadly, all possible alternatives at this stage are worse. Those of you with true power, if there are any of you, might try to help by convincing the Palestinians to make a deal. But if you don't have that power - and you probably don't - then at least stop preachifying. It makes you look unserious.
As a former Lefty and current centrist, it pains me that you've got to go all the way to The Weekly Standard to find thoughtful descriptions of how destructive the Obama policies are, and how dangerous for the people who live here, but there you have it. Here. Then again, perhaps you don't need to go to the Weekly Standard. Simply read the mainstream, PA- ("Moderate")-controlled press. Here, translated into English.
Cynicism and Reality
I realize this news item is 100% spin, from the carefully crafted insider's message through the editorial decision to run it so as to bolster The Man, to the appreciation it will garner with the folks of a particular ethnic group who loved him last year and may or may not been having minor pangs of doubt recently. I wasn't born yesterday, as they say in French.
Having said all that, the facts of the matter really are positive. As I've said in the past and will probably say again, it's a unique country in the annals of history, and everyone ought to appreciate it. The Man is a product of it, even though he's got lots yet to learn.
Having said all that, the facts of the matter really are positive. As I've said in the past and will probably say again, it's a unique country in the annals of history, and everyone ought to appreciate it. The Man is a product of it, even though he's got lots yet to learn.
More R&D
Dell is looking seriously into setting up an R&D center in Israel. Lots of the other Biggies already do, of course. They all get their money's worth, too.
Recommending Brewster Chamberlin
My old friend Brewster Chamberlin is churning out books. Brewster lives on Key West, which is a bit off my beaten path, so we haven't seen each other for some years now - ever since he retired from his position in Washington DC, actually, and went off to the jungle to write. As anyone who knows him would expect, the books he writes are all over the map. Here's a unique book about Paris, for example: Paris Now and Then.
If you're worried, this one is a partial version. In this one he went further south and east: Mediterranean Sketches
; in this one he veered away from erudite travel books: Radovic's Dilemma: A Mediterranean Thriller
. He also used to write about things related to Nazis, here and here - one of the things he and I have in common is that both of us used to and don't anymore.
I admit I haven't had the time to read them all, but from what I have read, and from knowing the author, his books have got to be better than 98% of what's out there.
If you're worried, this one is a partial version. In this one he went further south and east: Mediterranean Sketches; in this one he veered away from erudite travel books: Radovic's Dilemma: A Mediterranean Thriller. He also used to write about things related to Nazis, here and here - one of the things he and I have in common is that both of us used to and don't anymore.I admit I haven't had the time to read them all, but from what I have read, and from knowing the author, his books have got to be better than 98% of what's out there.
Eliraz Peretz, RIP
The deputy commander of the Golani forces in Hebron at the time of my visit last year was Eliraz Peretz, 32, father of four. He was killed in action yesterday, alongside one of his soldiers, Ilan Sabiatkovski, 21. Eliraz was the brother of Lieutenant Uriel Peretz, killed in action in 1998, and next door neighbor of Major Roi Klein, who was killed when he threw himself on a live grenade to save his troops during the Lebanon war is 2006.
Talking about an incident in Hebron, he told a reporter
Talking about an incident in Hebron, he told a reporter
"This isn't a simple situation," he said later, "the soldiers need to protect the Jewish settlers and the Palestinian citizens at the same time. Keep calm and collected, and, above all, keep from getting used to things, since the whole place can light up in an instant."
"It may not be natural for soldiers who trained to storm at targets, but this is also one of our missions," he said.
Reflective Blogger
Jeffrey Goldberg isn't blogging, because he needs to think.
I'm also trying to figure out what to think about this unusual turn in American-Israeli relations, and I'd rather not just pop off. This is big stuff.How quaint. Isn't that against the rules?
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