Tel Aviv, A Lonely Magical Musical Moment

In the evening. Tel Aviv and the Yarkon ‘river’. An anonymous lonely pretty good saxophonist playing jazz with playback… and a bystander armed with a digital camera to catch the magic of the moment,,,

Best viewed in full screen mode.

Does the Palestinian West Bank boycott the Israeli Occupied Territories?

Does the West Bank boycott the occupied territories?

The above phrase ‘looks’ like the ‘Drawing Hands’  from Escher: the West Bank hand  drawing his involvement with Israel and vice versa.. Israel’s hand drawing her involvement with the occupied territories..

Drawing hands, Echer

(Drawing Hands, Escher).

With this picture in my mind, I read  one of the last announcement to boycott Israel, I quote …” The  Spanish Housing Ministry has disqualified Ariel University Center from the international Solar Decathlon contest, on the grounds that the university is “located in occupied territories.”see here.

Well yes the Ariel University Center is located in the West Bank in the occupied territories. But does all those ‘beautiful people’ in Spain ask themselves, if their preaching to boycott Israel  has any real repercussion in the West Bank (..the occupied territories)?

Surprisingly perhaps, here is an answer by:

…”The governor of Bethlehem, Salah Tamari [said,]“Israelis are paranoid because of their past, while Palestinians are paranoid because of their present,” Mr. Tamari said. “But we are doomed to live together or blessed to live together, depending on your point of view. It is true that the economy is improving slightly. But beyond that, I’m afraid very little is getting easier.“ see here.

Or in more optimist words by the  Bethlehem’s mayor Victor Batarseh:

It has been the best year since 1999,” …. “Our hotels are full, whereas three years ago there
“ was almost nobody. Unemployment is below 20 percent. But we are still under occupation.”,see here.

This shows the gap between unscrupulous cowardly armchair professional boycotts of Israel,  and what happens in everyday life in the West Bank. If we want to understand the difficulties of those who are “doomed to live together or blessed to live together,…” as said by the governor of Bethlehem, Salah Tamari, then ‘doomed’ can be transformed into something closer to ‘blessed’.

The boycotters, mainly from Europe and Scandinavia, have  no idea of what’s really going on in the West Bank. Reading boring economic reports from Palestinian and Israeli statistical sources is only a nuisance to their obsession  to denounce Israel as the bad guy.

Here is a example of such a boring nuisance. The “Report of the Government of Israel to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee New York, September 22, 2009″ ,see here, ,  shows valuable information about the  actual… (blessed)… relation between  the West Bank and Israel. The information about the West Bank economy comes in part from the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics:

…”This relative economic growth and an improved quality of life are demonstrated by a flourishing of economic, cultural and social activities, including the opening of a shopping mall and a cinema complex in Nablus, the project to build the city of Rawabi, and increased activity of cafes and restaurants throughout the West Bank. According to official Palestinian sources,1 since 2008, foreign investment in the West Bank has increased by 600%, as a result of economic conferences held in Bethlehem and Nablus and the improved security situation on the ground. A sharp increase in cement consumption reaching, during the first half of 2009 alone, a figure exceeding by 18%, amounts consumed in all of 2008, reflects the high volume of construction activity on the ground.

.

During the first quarter of 2009, the Palestinian GDP increased by 5.6% compared to the parallel quarter in 2008 (despite early estimates by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, predicting that the annual GDP would shrink by 3.1%). According to IMF estimates, economic growth in 2009 is expected to reach 7%. However, if the trend of growth recorded in the first quarter of 2009 continues, annual economic growth for 2009 could even surpass these relatively optimistic IMF forecasts. This increase continues despite the global economic crisis. Most economic sectors contributed to this acceleration in economic activity.”….

So to return to the question: does the West Bank boycott the ‘Occupied Territories’, I quote from the article “Green Shoots in Palestine II” published by the NYT and written by Thomas L. Friedman :

…”..many Israelis were no doubt surprised to read this quote in the Maariv daily from Omar Hashim, deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Nablus, the commercial center of the West Bank: “Traders here are satisfied,” said Hashim. “Their sales are rising. They feel that life is returning to normal. There is a strong sense of optimism.”…

…“You can feel the movement,” said Olfat Hammad, the associate director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, who lives in Nablus and works in Ramallah. “It is not a burden anymore to move around to Ramallah for business meetings and social meetings.” Nablus recently opened its first multiplex, “Cinema City,” as well as a multistory furniture mart designed to cater to Israelis. Ramallah’s real estate prices have skyrocketed.

“I have had a 70 percent increase in sales,” Maariv quoted a Nablus shoe store owner as saying. “People are coming from the villages nearby, and from other cities in the West Bank and from Israel.”…see here .

And how do the Palestinian West Bank residents cope with the their own difficulties? From the site “Ramallah Syndrome” here is a excerpt from a discussion:

…”- Alessandro
Maybe a point is the definition of resistance. We always refer to the first intifada as a model, the only model, which can be a problem. Lisa’s articles and also Nasser’s article say there is a different form of resistance today. Then you didn’t go to the cinema because you were resisting, now it’s different. It’s not only negative. We are also a part of that, we are also having a life. It would be stupid to have the same model as the first intifada for the sake of it. But it has to be said that the opposite is also stupid, when you are building your career on Palestine, on the tragedy of Palestine, and having a normal life. And honestly, everyone here even though they are under occupation, is enjoying his or her life to some level, so you can also resist and have a normal life. The Lebanese have always managed to balance resisting and also trying to enjoy life. I don’t think it’s completely wrong.”… see here,

(extracts from conversations N. 1/Oct. 2008 and N. 2/Dec. 2008)

So the discussion and the doubts arising from  economic prosperity without resistance is the lesser of evil for many, but  for the belligerent Palestinian leaders it is an anathema, I quote (“Beware ‘economic peace” by Sever Plocker in Ynet) :

…”The economic normalization threatens the revolutionary and radical elements within Palestinian society, and they swore not to allow this normalization to take root. It’s perceived by them as indirect reconciliation with the occupation. A national liberation movement, and certainly a national-religious one, withers away when the masses go out to shop rather than to demonstrate.

The reinforcement of a Palestinian middle class, which may fall in love with a routine life, reject the ongoing struggle, and enjoy its proximity to the large Israeli market is anathema in the view of the militant leadership, and not only there. The tensions between economic and personal progress and a diplomatic and national dead-end tear Palestinian society apart.”… see here.

Another observer, Daniel Schueftan in his article “The Palestinians did it again”  put a direct emphasis,, on ..I quote:

…”The Palestinians are proving yet again that even the responsible elements among them cannot act in a constructive manner in order to build society and promote stability, welfare, and an agreement with Israel. They cannot do it because, as it turned out again, at the moment of truth we see the irresponsible, violent, and demagogical radicals who incite and fan the flames gain the upper hand.”…

…”Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is attempting, for the first time, to utilize the generous foreign aid for constructive aims and build a functioning society. President Abbas and his people realized (belatedly) the gravity of the terror curse and Hamas’ existential threat. Under their political patronage, the United States trained Palestinian security forces (the so-called “Dayton forces”) who are doing well in the fight against terrorism and its infrastructure.”…

…”However, this is where the self-destruction mechanism that has been thwarting the Palestinian people since it was formed almost 90 years ago came into action: An irresponsible and belligerent minority turns to violence, radical elements promise a zealous public immediate satisfaction via “victimization demagoguery,” and this immediately prompts the responsible elements to assume a defensive posture and be neutralized in the political arena.”….see here.

These are only a few glimpses 0n what really happens in the West Bank between The Israelis and the Palestinians despite all the security frictions all the animosities and mistrust. This is also a pointer of what can be done with hard work from both sides.

Will this convince the ‘enlightened’ Spanish and other European  boycotters? My bet is no for the simple reason that they are only belligerent destructive boycotters who regard perhaps with suspicion Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s attempt to build  a new Palestinian economy. So as the old adage says ..”While dogs bark, the caravan passes.”

Hope and Emotions Accompany the Video Statement of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit

The bare facts.

The  “proof-of-life” video statement by Gilad Shalit.  The price for the video information: twenty terrorist women swapped for Gilad. The hope: his return home to his family in Israel as soon as possible .

Here is the full text of the video statement of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured and held hostage by the Hamas since June 2006.

…”Hi, I am Gilad Shalit, son of Aviva and Noam Shalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, from Mitzpe Hilla, ID number 300097029. Today is Monday 14 September 2009.

As you can see, I’m holding in my hand today’s Palestine newspaper, 14th September 2009, which is published in Gaza.

I’m reading the newspaper in order to find information about myself, and I hope to find information about my release and return home soon.

I have been waiting and yearning a long time for the day I will be released.

I hope the current government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu will not waste this opportunity to finalise the deal and that as a result I will finally be able to realise my dream and be released.

I want to send my regards to my family, to tell them that I love them and miss them a lot, and yearn for the day that I will see them.

Father, Yoel and Hadas, do you remember the day when you arrived at my base in Ramat Ha-Golan, on the 31st December 2005, which, if I’m not mistaken, is called Revia Bet? We did a tour around the base. You took a picture of me on top of the Merkava tank, and on top of one of the old tanks at the entrance to the base.

Afterwards, we drove to a restaurant in one of the Druze villages, and on the way we took a picture on the side of the road with the snow-covered Mount Hermon.

I want to tell you that I am well in terms of my health. The mujahideen of the Izzeddine al-Qassam Brigades are treating me fine.

Thank you very much and see you again.”… source

i

The Goldstone Encounter with the Hamas Terrorism and Israel’s Defence War

Justice Richard Goldstone.

A few days ago Sky News reported a couple of news mentioning the name Goldstone. The first was about an outbreak of the e-coli disease in the Goldstone pet farm ( Surrey, UK),  and the second was the Goldstone commission report about the Cast Lead war between Israel and the Hamas. . I was almost temped to say:  perhaps another sort of disease, breed in the Universal Human Rights laboratories specifically targeting Israel.

Well, no, the report is not a disease. Ex judge Richard Goldstone is an honorable men. His credentials as a Zionist and Israel lover are beyond doubts. He is a first rate jurist with overwhelming experience in war crimes jurisdiction.

So this Zionist Israel lover is the men accusing Israel of war crimes, putting her in the same league as the Nazi criminals in the Nirenberg Trials. He is not drawing a demarcation lines between the premeditated Wannsee plan of exterminating the Jews and in fact exterminating 6 million of them, and between Israel’s self defence war, causing 1300 war casualties mostly Hamas men.

Let me  remind to myself: the Cast Lead war was  only the final result of a 7 year shelling  of more than 8000 qassam rockets  targeting  half a million of civilians living in south Israel by the Hamas ,

So where is the catch? what is going wrong?

Well to say it frankly. Nothing is going wrong, there is no catch at all. Ex judge Goldstone report is viewing and judging the today terrorist warfare  trough the codex of WW2 war crimes .

He has taken a snapshot named the “Cast Lead” war, a war whose causes are fossilized deep into the report as not fitting directly in the overall  schema of what he sees as war crimes . Israel’s attempt to stop the rocket launching on his southern civilian population is, in his view, well fitting in his scheme of war crimes:

…”Israel is currently fighting under, and being judged by, the laws of World War II, which are suitable for conventional wars between two or more armies in open fields, where it is easier to define proportionality.

But what do you do when terrorists hide under homes, or when they don’t wear uniforms? What do you do when the enemy high command runs its operations from under a hospital located in a crowded neighborhood, as Hamas did during Cast Lead, using the basement of Shifa Hospital as a command and control center? It is clear that the existing laws of war are incompatible with the current and evolving nature of war”…, see here.

This is a situation of incompatibilities where hypothetical soldiers will be forced to ask in the middle of battle who is a civilian and who is a terrorist and meanwhile be killed and perhaps loosing a self defense war..

Ex judge Goldstone’s report does not provide much help to solve such incompatibilities or ‘minor’ problems. But on the other hand his report is a panacea for the terrorist who can now rely on his WW2 codex jurisdiction to continue without fear, from within any civilian population, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq or any other country or European capital, and perpetuate any crimes, and if civilians may be killed in the attempt of the local forces to stop them, the blame of war crimes will fall on the defenders.

What conclusions, if any, can be drawn from the encounter of ex judge Goldstone, Hamas terrorism and Israel defending her citizens. In the short run all are shouting in one great cacophony. Right wing speakers blame the world for his hypocrisy. See Obama in Afghanistan, Putin in Tchetchenia… etc. Leftists and fringe speakers accuse Israel for all the vicissitudes of the world, see the  boycotters from the UK, Toronto …etc.

But in the long run, and in our days the long run is relatively short, each of the belligerent parties will readjust himself to the new Goldstone conditions or fight them , fine tuning his intelligence capacities and improving his high-tech weaponry. The smarter will do the hack better. But if the Jihadist mentality  against Israel will prevail, then de facto, nothing will radically change for both sides. Israel and the Hamas will continue their clashes.

This is the world today, a ‘Rashomon‘ movie, telling a 21 century story staged in the high-tech third millennium under the auspice of the Goldstone report as a metaphor.

Jane Fonda, Danny Glover and Friends in Toronto

To tell the truth …The Toronto film festival and his tail of anti Israeli participants  is not the subject of the following lines.

Actors Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, musician David Byrne and filmmaker Ken Loach may think what they want about the Israeli and Tel Aviv participation when boycotting the  festival f called “City to City” — which honors Tel Aviv ’s 100th anniversary by spotlighting 10 Israeli films.

The  real subject is: how those famous actors when expressing their own opinions and not reciting the words of a  professional film script are a direct copy of the common talkbacker ’shouting out’ his gut feelings without much reverence. .

And what are the Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, musician David Byrne and filmmaker Ken Loach arguments in favor of the boycotting:

Thy…”…accused the Toronto International Film Festival of “complicity with the Israeli propaganda machine” over its spotlight this year on Tel Aviv. “…

And more:

…”The program “ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories” after a “mass exiling of the Palestinian population” in 1948, according to the letter. “…see here.

Jane Fonda

Now the irony of this slapstick comedy is that in the Google era when information is available on any subject, it is a bit silly to argue about the “Israeli apartheid”  without looking into your own backyard, something actors Jane Fonda and Danny Glover forgot to do.

Well, I will do it for them.

Their own backyard is the  film industry located in  Hollywood, LA California  USA.

So who where the historical inhabitants of the land where the today big Hollywood film industry is making his milliards of dollar to the benefit, among others, of Jane Fonda and Danny Glover. Well you surely guess the answer, the bad guys the Indians the Apaches  ( not the software or the helicopter)  the Sioux etc, they where the native Americans and their today descendants lives in LA.

Here is an expert from a report “The Status of American Indian Children in Los Angeles November 2003″:

…”Although American Indian and Alaskan Natives were the first Americans, they are often among the most forgotten in the region’s social priorities. AIAN children face persistent economic and educational hardships. Serving this community presents unique challenges, in part because the geographic dispersion of AIANs makes it difficult to serve this community using centralized facilities. The relatively small overall size of the AIAN population hinders the reach of their political voice. Despite these barriers, as a society we have an obligation to work with AIANs to formulate better and more approrpiate public policies. Understanding and respecting the diverse cultures and experiences of AIANs must be an integral part of programs to address and alleviate the challenges facing indigeneous populations in the Los Angeles region.”… See here for the whole report

Moreover, there is a site named “Native American Netroots“. The site’s statement is:

…”...a forum for the discussion of political, social and economic issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the United States, including their lack of political representation, economic deprivation, health care issues, and the on-going struggle for preservation of identity and cultural history.”…

One of the site’s  pages is dedicated to “American Indians, Hollywood, and Stereotypes” . I am not sure, but it seems that the illiteracy and ignorance of Jane Fonda and Danny Glover of their own American history is very well illustrated by the following excerp:

…”Only when we saw them building roads through our land, wagons at first, and then the railroad, when we watched them building forts, killing off all the game, committing buffalo genocide, and we saw them ripping up our Black Hills for gold, our sacred Paha Sapa, the home of the wakinyan, the thunderbirds, only then did we realize what they wanted was our land. Then we began to fight. For our earth. For our children. That started what the whites call the Great Indian Wars of the West. I call it the Great Indian Holocaust.”…see here

Now if actors Fonda and Glover are in an amnesic state about their own native American history, is there any hint they would do a better job with modern Israeli history? ..So in the light of the above story, why do they not first of all boycott themselves…and then the festival … and after that all the others.

Danny Glover

The Cover as a Promise

It is said that the Israelis and the Jews are the People of the Book, in reminiscence of the holy book known universally as the Hebrew Bible. Surprisingly the source of the name is from the Qur’an, see here. In modern Israel and the Jewish diaspora the People of the Book is an allusion to the individuals who read many books, not necessarily the Scriptures.

I am a member of the people who read a lot of book. When I buy a book my first look is at the cover. Covers of books hold for me a promise. They have the power to boost my imagination and curiosity and many times I buy a book because the cover design and art are enough to open my wallet. Not always a clever deed if the content does not fit into my expectation. My last resort to comfort myself for my foolishness is to argue that the cover by himself is worth the buy.

Anyway here below is a small  carpet made from covers of  books I’ve read:

Click on each cover picture to find more details about the book.

For the readers who love cover art here are two links: ‘Cover Browser‘ and ‘ComicCovers‘.

And finally ‘to be in the mood’ here is the beautiful song by Tracy Chapman “The Promise”.

The Islamic State as a Martyr

Orwellian style thought police is an offspring of today’s Internet technology:

…”Thought police – Gaza-style: The Hamas police in Gaza arrested on Sunday night a Fatah operative who had allegedly distributed lies on Fatah Web forums. This is a first-of-its-kind arrest, and it appears Hamas’ battle against Fatah has glided into the Internet.

Hamas’ Gaza security apparatuses informed on Monday that the arrest was made possible due to information received in the “Electronic Security” unit, belonging to the police’s general intelligence corpus. Upon the end of the investigation it was decided to arrest Fatah operative Bader Abed Ael on the suspicion of spreading “truth distorting lies” which cause incitement in Gaza.”… see here.

Now the real point is not the Hamas “Electronic Security” unit, but how fundamentalist Islamic states or  groups,  will  use martyrs-shahids or others as launching platforms for more dangerous technologies than the Electronic Security unit. This spans an horizon broader than the electronic arrest of the Fatah operative Bader Abed Ael….

Security matters. Click to enlarge.

A major obstacle preventing the Islamic fundamentalist groups to acquire modern technology is that they don’t have a real research community providing them with original developments bypassing the scarcity of direct up to date armament  sources. But Allah is great, and despite being  protected by secrecy and undercover there are many ways to find leaking sources  from research communities and underground traffic of military, academic and civil technology goods, see here.

Today the Islamic fundamentalist groups  fight their ‘ideological’ wars with explosives, the shahids suicides bombers, good funding and good intelligence.These terrorist skills are enough to disseminate fear and disarray, see the 11/9 , the Madrid attack…

But it would be a great mistake to think that ‘primitive terrorism’ is a dead end whose consequences are localized terrorist act like the last Indonesia terrorist hotel attack in Jakarta, see here. On this point, talking about the Middle East, there is an obvious change in the behavior of the  fundamentalist groups like the Hamas and the Hezbollah. They strives to, and are now legitimate elected political parties in Gaza and Lebanon without renouncing any of their Islamic fundamentalist goals.

As  elected  or conjoint rulers of their own states, and in due time recognized by the international community, they will have access to modern technologies. Under the label of technologies for peace and with some bribery they will receive help and advice for developing their own ‘peaceful technologies, for the so called ‘benefits of their citizens’.

A forerunner in the Middle East, exemplifying the ‘ technologies for peace’ goal , was the Iraqi nuclear device Osirak of French design, see here.

Now in the same vein, under the reign of the fundamentalist Ayatollahs, Iran from a society with a modest  technological  baggage,  has evolved into a mature scientific community which is on the verge of producing nuclear weapons, I quote the German magazine “Stern”:

…”Iran has by now mastered the entire nuclear enrichment technology and also possesses enough centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium, reports the BND according to stern. “Nobody would have thought this possible some years ago,” an expert said. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, Iran has installed more than 7000 centrifuges at the nuclear power plant in Natanz. The 4290 of them in operation at the beginning of June had enriched at least 1.3 tons of uranium – enough for one to two nuclear bombs.”…see more.

With all the above in mind, we may again ask: how will legitimate Islamic states or elected parties with private militias use, if they could, one of the most dangerous technology on earth, the nuclear technology.

Perhaps it’s a forgotten fact, but Iran during the seven years war with Iraq, has partially answered the same question with conventional warfare, by seeing in the “peaceful” made French test reactor a future nuclear threat, and was the first to attack Osirak on September 30, 1980, before the nuclear reactor was destroyed by Israel on June 7, 1981.

Israel is today in the same position as Iran during the seven years war, seeing in Iran’s enrichment program of plutonium an existentialist threat to her future.

Well, all this tells perhaps the political correct story. So, at most, we may reasonably conclude that with the Iranian getting their own nuclear weapons, there will be some delicate  balance of terror between Israel and Iran.

But here comes in the unpredictable.  Why not wildly speculate and make a generalization and argue that if there are Islamic groups  educating children, young women and man to be shahids in the name of Allah, see here, then there my be a Shahidic Islamic State educating a whole population to be ready to pay the shahids death toll prize at a national martyrdom level, and consequently in a religious nuclear war to wipe out another state, considered as a major obstacle to the reign of Allah… or Iran. (See here in the ‘Conclusion’ pdf.)

Perhaps a crazy Orwellian science fiction idea, but well worth to be considered in a less speculative manner.

The following quote my throw some light on the validity of the above speculation:

…”Podhoretz also quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the revolution and ruled from 1979 to 1989, as saying, ‘We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another word for paganism. I say this land (Iran) burn … go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.’ “, see here.

A Tribute to Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman.

I am a great admirer of  of Art Spiegelman’s unusual work in comics and beyond. Today I pay him my personal tribute on the occasion of his new exhibition at the gallery Martel in Paris. Here are few of his  unpublished works, see more on ‘Pixelcreation’ in French.

Click to enlarge.

Here are two pages from the graphic book “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” who sold  over a million copies. The book tells the horrors of the Holocaust in an unique way, see more here.

It is interesting to read the reviews by readers of  ’Maus’,  members of the ‘LibraryThing‘ site:

…”This two-part graphic novel is a Holocaust autobiography featuring white mice as Jews, cats as Nazis, and wartime Europe as an enormous mousetrap. Using a deeply personal, reflective and rhythmic tone, the author peels off the layers of a cast of well-developed characters, centralizing around a Holocaust survivor and his son. The plot of this Pulitzer Prize winning narrative jumps between past and present with two storylines: one focusing on the Holocaust experience and one focusing on the father-son relationship. With its complex themes and unconventional format, Maus is a challenge to describe. Fiction, biography, autobiography and history, this work rises above genre to become an exceptionally unique work, an amazing story destined to become a classic. Despite being set in the Holocaust, what emerges from this comic-book masterpiece is a story of love, loyalty, and hope.”… Source: see here.

More comics drawings from the exposition at the gallery Martel.

Click to enlarge.