Israeli Mom

IsraeliDad’s family are quite the world travelers. Out of five sons and two parents, I think we can count on at least two of three being out of the country traveling at any given time.

Today, my dear parents-in-law are leaving us for a month to tour Burma. Fortunately, just before they were about to leave we finally got news from their son and his wife - Oren and Lesley, who finally made it to India in their boat, along with their sailing dog Sheva.

We had last heard from them some 50 days ago, as they were heading from Eritrea down the Red Sea to India. We knew their route was taking them through hostile water, with non-friendly countries on either side and a sea notorious in its pirates to cross. They had estimated the journey at three weeks, so we were naturally quite worried by now.

So, finally, we heard from the adventurous couple this morning, with an email letting us know that they have made it safely to India. Apparently, it has been quite the adventure, as they were close to becoming stranded at sea with no food or water… but finally, they made it through. And no, no pirate attacks. How disappointing.

So, welcome back to civilization, Lesley and Oren. Glad you survived without having to resort to eating Sheva!

You can read more about their adventures as soon as Lesley updates their wonderful blog at - www.chasamba.com

Edited to add:

I have spent sometime since initially making this post this morning, trying to gather up more information. I have found no indication in the Israeli press that any women were brought out of Gaza during the operation.

I have mentioned Wafa before, although not by name. He is a great guy I met through the MePeace community. 25 years old, living in Gaza, Wafa is a student of English, about to become an English teacher soon, and a member of the Palestinian rescue forces.

I intend to write more about Wafa and his vision, and our fascinating communications. For now, I am introducing him as “my source in Gaza”. You see, Wafa is kind enough to keep members of MePeace updated with news from inside Gaza. It’s a fascinating opportunity for me to learn how things look from the other side, on the ground, so to speak. Wafa being a peace seeking patriotic Palestinian, I feel that he provides a rather objective and non inflammatory point of view.

Today, Wafa sent us all this message:

Palestinian family in the central Gaza Strip Appealed institutions of international humanitarian and human rights to intervene to release the three women ‘abducted’ by Israeli occupation forces from their homes during the incursion in the east of Maghazi refugee camp two days ago. WHY?????
Because their brother is wanted to israeli occupation forces.

On his page on MePeace, there were images of the three women too.

(Photo: AP Photo/Yehuda Lahiani)

Well, I am curious too, and would like to try and help, in whatever little way I can. I’ll start by providing my own perspective.

Israel has been known to go into various places, sometimes in other countries and abduct people to arrest them, so it’s not that I think this is something unheard of. I don’t know if it actually did take place or not - trying to find out. My perspective relates to the possibility that it is true.

I have no idea if and why their brother is indeed wanted for questioning, but if he is, it may make some sense to hold the sisters for a brief investigation and try to find out where he is. I would expect them to be released afterwards though - it’s not like Israel is in the habit of keeping family members of wanted persons in its jails (if it were, those jails would be overflowing by now…)

We do know, from the media, that the sisters were not the target in this particular mission. The target was the tunnel, constructed by Hamas with the purpose of kidnapping another Israeli soldier. According to Palestinian sources quoted in one of the newspapers, the information about the tunnel and the plan were provided by a Palestinian recently arrested by the Israeli security forces.

These are all my own assumptions, based on the information provided by the media. My point being, in all likelihood, this was not some pre-planned kidnapping. Question remains, why are they not released after the questioning and sent back home to their family. I would think a couple of days is more than enough to ask a few questions.

In fact, while I think holding them captive during the operation itself and possibly for a few hours following that, for questioning, is a legitimate action - anything beyond that is morally wrong, IMO.

If this is an attempt to exert more pressure on the family, and hence on the brother, then I think this is an immoral and probably illegal measure. These women should not be held hostage until their brother shows up (and let’s face it, what is the likelihood of that happening?)

So, I have sent an email to my contact in the Ministry of Foregin Affairs, and will be making a phone call soon to the IDF Spokesperson, trying to get some answers. I’ll keep this post updated if I find anything new.

Remember the old joke about “The Elephant and the Jewish Problem”?

It has many variations, but the essence is the same. A group of people of various nationalities are asked to write essays about the elephant. Each brings his own perspective and national biases. In the versions I know, the French guy writes about the elephant’s love life; the German writes a meticulous introduction to elephants in six volumes; the Japanese writes about how to make smaller, smarter and cheaper elephants;  the American writes about how to make elephants that are bigger and shinier… and so on. The Jewish representative writes about “The Elephant and the Jewish Problem”.

The wording goes back to the Nineteenth century, early roots of Zionism, when Jews were very concerned with what they (and others) perceived as that “problem” of a people without a land. The concept lasted well into our own times though: judging anything and everything through the single narrow prism of being Jewish.

The Israeli version of this mindset is reflected in the question asked again and again in the Israeli media over the past couple of days: Is Obama good for Israel? and some even go as far as asking “Is Obama good for the Jews?” when what they mean in effect is the Jews in Israel.

The height of it was the media’s orgy over the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as the White House Chief of Staff. “Oh my God, an Israeli in the most important role in the USA! Obama is so wonderful for Israel!” Honestly, I thought at first he had an actual Israeli citizen appointed as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This narrow-minded, shtettle mentality is so annoying to me. I am amazed so many people still use this terminology. Of course, what they actually wonder about is the future US policy in the Middle East, which is an interesting topic. But phrasing it like that just sounds so provincial and limited, and yet is so accepted in the Israeli media. Ridiculous, really, when you consider the  following two points:

1. Who the heck knows what’s good for Israel to begin with? There is so much internal dispute over this question. When America supports an Israeli policy to have more settlements in the Occupied Territories, is that good or bad for Israel? When America does apply pressure on Israel to get into negotiations with the Palestinians, or the Syrians for that matter, is that good or bad for Israel? Ask different people and you’ll get different answers anyway. Reminds me of the responses to Emanuel’s appointment when some people said it was actually proof that Obama is anti-Israeli, because Emanuel is actually, God forbid, a supporter of the Israeli peace movement.

2. Israel is actually, believe it or not, part of the world. If there’s anything the current economical crisis has shown it’s just how tightly bound together our globe is. The policies of the American President regarding the US itself effect the entire world, and ultimately, Israel as well. The question therefore should be the same as it is everywhere else: Is Obama good for America, and subsequently, is Obama good for the world. After all, any global changes that take place following American policy eventually effect us here as well.

So, I’ll wrap up this longish saying that I sincerely hope that Obama will be good for the US. It’s all I ask for really - the rest will follow on its own.

Woke up this morning to some bad news. Funny, I heard it first from people close to the event, both on our side in the IDF, and from a friend I made on MePeace that sent out a message that simply read:

“Seven palestinians were killed as truce ended between palestinians and israelies.”

A single line that made my heart sink.

It’s such a shame. I hope both sides will have enough sense in them to prevent further escalation.

Some more background, by Haaretz:
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034284.html

This was a military clash, and the Palestinians who were killed were, according to Hamas themselves, military personnel engaged in creating a tunnel into Israel through which they planned to kidnap another soldier. Six of them were killed when the tunnel exploded. It exploded and didn’t just collapse, because it had been booby-trapped from the inside, in preparation for the IDF discovering it.

I hope the Hamas has enough sense to see their own part in this. This wasn’t some wild attack on civilians. And, as with all stupid wars, “revenge” has been delivered in the form of 30 qassam rockets fired over the night.

Don’t get me wrong - I think it was a stupid move on the part of Israel, to shake this fragile truce. Just like it was a stupid move to build those tunnels filled with explosives to begin with. I just hope that with the new president in the White House, who knows, maybe some change will come to the Middle East as well.

We sure do need change here, more than “here we go again” lines…

To our American friends - enjoy your exciting day! I really think voting is important, so go out there and cast your vote. The results are going to determine so much in the world, not just in the US. I really hope this elections will bring on a well needed change to the Middle East.

We’ve had an unexpected rescue over the weekend - a pretty and fiesty local Jay!

I have developed quite the reputation for rescuing odd animals around these parts. Ever since I (successfully!) rescued a huge beetle, which I thought was a rare specimen, my rescues have become a bit of a family joke. Well, maybe it started with the chicken rescue, not sure.

Just that you don’t think I go around rescuing ants and mosquitoes, the bug, I was sure was a rare collector’s exotic beetle. It was totally huge too - the largest bug I had ever seen:

Turned out it was a local wild species after all, just unusually large. And yest, we found it a good home, actually, with a guy who goes around schools to teach kids about animals. He knew how to take good care of this beetle and was thrilled with it.

Anyways, this time around it was a bird. Not our first rescued bird. The aforementioned chicken was not a successful rescue. Although we did take it to the vet and had it treated properly (it had been injured by a dog), alas a few days later, another dog managed to get into its cage and all that was left was a single feathered wing We also had an unsuccessful heron rescue. It was sick, wouldn’t eat and eventually, despite our efforts, it died.

So, when we found a jay lying on the ground, I was worried. It looked ok, just wouldn’t fly. It looked old enough to fly, and was alert and feisty enough to keep pinching me with its beak. So, I decided to contact the Israeli wildlife authority. Now, jays are quite common in Israel, nothing rare about this pretty bird, so IsraeliDad was extremely skeptic that they would be remotely interested in this bird. But our bird was in luck. This very friendly guy appeared a few hours later, checked it over and even named it George. He couldn’t see anything wrong with him either, but said maybe an x-ray would show more, as George was possibly hit by a car, or maybe even shot somewhere further away from our place and managed to fly over to here.

So here’s “our” George, first in the cage we held him in (we didn’t want to touch him too much, so as not to stress it out):

and then held by the wildlife authority guy:

He was such a lively little guy. He kept trying to grab our fingers in its beak and sometimes succeeded - it wasn’t to painful, actually quite endearing:

So, good luck to you George. I hope you’re doing well in the wildlife hospital!

October is over, so here are a few more pictures to remember it with -

This was the month of the Jewish holidays, and especially the long school holiday of Sukkot.

A few more images from our travels during Sukkot. First, our trip up north to the Golan and the Upper Galillee.

So, sharing a picture of a sukka hut in one of the national parks we went to.  Religious people have to eat inside the sukka through out the seven days of the holiday, so wherever there is an eating area, they put up a sukka for religious visitors - even in the forest picnic area:

This is Dan in a children’s playground in the Upper Galillee:

And me and the kids waiting for the show to begin in the kibbutz where we were staying -

And two more pictures from our visit to Akko (Acre) :

We still don’t know what it was doing there, but down in the Crusader Knights’ Halls, we found a piano. The kids had a lot of fun enhancing the atmosphere with eerie piano notes.

Playing along in the ancient “Han” - a motel where you could park your horse and get a room in Old Acre:

And I couldn’t resist sharing this one. I thought it was kinda funny, the IDF shirt headed with the Arab Kaffiya’s:

And back home, with some more mundane pictures. My brother-in-law and his wife bought a new fridge, and the kids got a new home:

Our Ron started eye therapy, after being diagnosed with some eyesight issues. Everyday, he sits for 20 minutes with his 3-D glasses and plays the computer, errr, I mean, does his eyesight exercises:

Finally, we ended the month sweetly, celebrating a Hare Krishna holiday -
Govardhana Puja. We’re not followers of Krishna, but we have friends that are, and when invited to a celebration that includes hills of sweets, we rarely decline It was a lot of fun, lots of singing and dancing, and I don’t think I had more than 4-5 pieces of candy - honest!

So, that was October!

Surprisingly, I think I blogged more while the kids were on their school holiday… I hope I can keep it up - but no promises. I am back to working as much as I can during the day with lots of new (and not so new) projects going on.

One project I’m trying my hand at these days involves creating a network of pages at place called Hub Pages. It’s a nifty site where you can very easily publish your own web pages on anything you like. Others get to read and rate the pages, and the ads on the pages generate revenue for the writer. If you don’t have your own websites and would like to see what writing online feels like, I highly recommend their service. It’s free to use, so you can just try it out -

click here to sign up for your own hub pages account.

For now, if you’re visiting my blog and have a minute, could you please visit one of my hub pages, read it and if you like it, give it the thumbs up - I would so appreciate that!

Savings Account - The Why and How’s

Sizzling Hot Laptops

Top Five Computer Games on Amazon

Ragdoll Cats as Pets

Panic Mouse Motorized Cat Toy

You can see more of my hubs on my profile page. Thank you!

Please excuse this humble blog if you happen to see it changing colors and designs - I’m in the mood for a change, and switching blog themes is much cheaper than getting a new haircut, and let’s face it, it’s less painful too.

Online interactions concerning the politics of Israel and the Middle East are not easy for me. I find myself too often, trying to explain that there is a big difference between Israel and the views and actions of a particular Israeli government. That the Zionist ideas and ideals are not necessarily reflected in current Israeli policy and conduct.

On occasion, I have had to deal with even worse accusations. People bringing up the conduct of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, specifically those in Hebron. Videos captured these people’s blatant aggression and hostility towards Palestinians more than once. Explaining that these people are shunned by the majority of Israelis, and do not represent Israeli in any form or way was always somewhat a challenge.

Well, today, the settlers of Hebron have really outdone themselves and made the gap between themselves and the Israeli public crystal clear. After the IDF evicted them (again) from one of their illegal outposts, this time finally applying measures similar to those applied against Palestinians, and demolishing their homes into rubbles, they finally let it all out…In a radio interview, which was repeatedly broadcasted in every news bulletin, one of them was saying about the IDF soldiers: “‘We hope they are all defeated by their enemies, killed and slaughtered because that’s what they deserve”. And others were openly calling out for the settlers to perform terror attacks against IDF soldiers.

Here’s the full article in Ynet

Ok, this may not represent even the extremists minority of Hebron, or maybe it does? I really don’t know. These words sound very harsh to Israeli ears. One thing is certain, the settlers of Hebron, and probably settlers in general, are not very popular in Israel today…