Holocaust Remembrance Day

Yesterday evening and today we observed Holocaust Remembrance Day here in Israel. It's always a sobering day. It makes you realise that you should appreciate every piece of food you put in your mouth and the roof you have over your head. Most of all, it makes you realise that you should make the most of every moment you have with your family.

This year, it was even more sobering. First of all, as each year passes you see fewer and fewer survivors at the ceremonies, and these days most of them were only children when the Holocaust took place. Very soon, we'll hardly have any people left to share their personal stories with us and remind the world that the Holocaust really did happen.

In one of those ironies that seems to haunt the Jewish world, Holocaust Remembrance Day began on the evening of 20th April - the day Hitler was born. And if that weren't enough, it was also the same day that the President of Iran "graced" the Durban Conference in Geneva with his presence and, true to style, let loose with his usual vitriolic antisemitic / anti-Israeli tirades. Thankfully, some countries had the decency not to send delegates (the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Holland, as I remember) and the delegates of most member countries of the EU at least walked out when he began to touch on the subject of Israel. Yet, many others stayed, listened and applauded at the end of his speech. Moreover, the President of Switzerland dined with him. Neutrality is all very well if you use it to bridge the gaps between hostile parties, but when it is used in such a hypocritical manner and effectively encourages and supports a person like Ahmedinijad, then I'm afraid that's not what I call neutrality.

For the time being, Ahmedinijad is essentially our problem. That's how it started with Hitler too - and look where it all ended. Today Iran is our problem - if the rest of the world continues to close its eyes and pretend that working through diplomatic channels will solve the whole issue, then tomorrow he will be their problem. But by that time, it might be a little too late for us to say "We told you so..."

Happy Passover...and an interesting article

It's been quite some time since I last posted anything - must be a sign that things are quiet?
Here's an interesting article from our friends at the BBC. Their latest gem (which I am NOT attaching) described a person who tried to run over three policeman as an 'attacker' - where the quotation marks come from beats me. Unless of course trying to kill three people with your car is not really considered an attack in the UK. Now, what might it be? Causing a public nuisance... or maybe just being 'a very naughty person'...?

Anyway, this article is worth reading, especially the end...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7913313.stm

Some things never change.

This month I got an update from the blog's site monitor, and I was quite surprised to see that people still go in and check if I've added anything. Given that I haven't added anything for I long time, I was actually quite flattered. I made a mental note to add a post this weekend, in which I would break away from the war theme and talk about the outrages in the education system in Israel as a whole, and Qiryat Gat in particular. And then a couple of things happened that made me change my mind.

The first thing was a report on the radio that said that since the "cease-fire", over one hundred rockets have landed in Israel. I wonder how many people knew that – both inside and outside of Israel? I, for one, didn't know that the amount was so high, and I live within the radius of the rockets! Now, I wonder if Israel had fired 100 rockets into the Gaza strip over the same period of time how many people would know… Half the world and its mother, I would imagine.

Our own personal link to Sderot, which has suffered the worst of the bombing, is the administrative head of our health centre. By chance, we were at the health centre this week, and we asked her how things are. She said, "Can you imagine being at home and suddenly hearing a 'boom', knowing that your child is on her way to the library?" Personally, I can't. How these people maintain their sanity is a mystery to me.

Then, this week, our son, Yonatan, got a letter in the post. Not just any letter. It was his first call-up for the army. In June, he'll go to the army centre in Be'er Sheva for the initial round of examinations. I'm pretty sure he'll go into some form of combat unit, provided he passes the medical. Who knows what his three years of military service will bring? I don't even want to think about it. I just tell myself that it is something that has to be done.

Altogether, it has been a pretty depressing week. We were called in to a meeting at my 'main' job, where the probable effects of the worldwide recession/depression (which hasn't really hit Israel yet) were explained very clearly. However, in addition to the general common-garden effects that everyone else has to face, we, being Israelis, have an added 'bonus'. The knock-on effects of the Gaza campaign. Employees in one of our European offices have even received hate-mail because they work for an Israeli company, not to mention one weirdo's call on his blog ("SOS palestina") to boycott our products. Also, apparently, every penny that we earn goes towards killing Palestinians… The fact that every penny the Hamas get their paws on goes towards rockets and suicide bombers is, of course, irrelevant, and probably quite legitimate in those people's eyes. There is not one Jewish family still living in the Gaza strip, so what more do they want? All or nothing, it would seem.

Finally, today was the last straw. An Arab tractor driver tried to drive his bulldozer into a police car and push it into a bus. Many of you who read this blog will know exactly what I am referring to when I say that it was like turning the clock back some eight months. In fact, when we heard the news, Sari and I just froze and looked at each other without speaking. This time we were lucky. This time there won't be a wife and children who get a call telling them that the husband or father that they said goodbye to in the morning won't be coming home again.

This is the first sentence of how it was reported on the BBC news site.

"The driver of a construction vehicle in West Jerusalem has been shot dead by police after he rammed a police car."

I'm willing to bet that if an Israeli had done the same thing in East Jerusalem, the semantics would have been slightly different.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the double standards in this whole messy affair are only making it worse. The more Israel feels its back is against the wall, and that no one will even listen to us, let alone give us a fair hearing, the more intransigent we will become. We obviously have nothing to gain by doing what the rest of the world would like us to do. In fact we have got a lot to lose. Our lives, basically... But then, Jewish/Israeli lives have never really been worth that much to the rest of the world, have they?

Well,well,well....

When you read this, bear in mind it does not come from an Israeli source, but the BBC which, as we all know, is known for its particular stance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And look who's doing the complaining... the UN!!!! Could this be the beginning of the messianic age???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7875171.stm

Let me get this right....

There's something I just don't get...
1. The Palestinians have been firing rockets at Sderot for about 8 years.
2. We moved all Jewish settlements out of the Gaza strip some 3 years ago.
3. Theoretically, there should have been no need, therefore, to continue firing rockets at Israel.
4. The Palestinians continued to fire rockets at Israel.
5. During these eight years, the world said nothing about the rockets being fired at Israel.
6. Israel finally had enough and retaliated.
7. The world was in an uproar - how could we do such a thing?
8. Israel bloodied the Hamas's nose and then left Gaza unilaterally.
9. Yesterday, in the Hague, it was decided to investigate war crimes that were committed by Israeli soldiers while in Gaza. (What was the crime - warning people before bombing the houses that they let terrorists fire rockets from?)
10. Today, a rocket fell in the centre of Ashkelon.
11. The world hasn't said a thing.
12. Why?

I think I get it - there's one rule for terrorists (they're terrorists, so they are allowed to behave like terrorists - they "do" terrorism, that's their job) and another for democracies (they have to behave in a 'civilised' manner even if the other side is killing their citizens).
Yet, by the same token, the world should be condemning Russia for what it did in Georgia and Chechnya. One would have thought that the Hague would have rushed to check out any possible war crimes that might have occurred there.
Some people might call this double standards. I'm afraid to me it reeks of good old Antisemitism in its finest (and most refined) form...
Just one final point - I see more and more of my moderate friends becoming much more militant and right-wing in their approach. As far as I can see, their reasoning is that no one else in the world is willing to stand up for Israel and they are all pulling together as a nation does when it is under threat. The problem is that our biggest threat is not the Hamas or the Hizballah. It is the silence of the world.

It's not over yet...

The title sounds more dramatic than what I have to say, but it's the closest I can come to finding something suitable without spending hours trying to find something snappier or more apt - I do enough of that during work hours!



On several occasions, I have been intending to write about something and then before I actually get to the keyboard, I get a message along the same lines from someone else. That's what happened this evening. I got two e-mails from a friend which covered the subjects I wanted to talk about. One was a very moving e-mail written by a mother entitled "My son came home". Doesn't that just say it all? The prayer of every parent that sends a son (or daughter) to the army... Somehow, automatically, it set me thinking of those who didn't come home, not only in this war, but in previous wars too. Wars don't just end, and we don't just go back to normal when the agreements are reached. Especially in Israel, where there are very few families whose lives have not been affected by the various military campaigns. There are many families whose lives will never be the same, and as the politicians try to work out how long the cease-fire will last, it must make them wonder what it was all for. Did we go to war just to 'gain' a cease-fire? Hopefully, a lot of what we're hearing from the other side is just rhetoric.



However, what I wanted to talk about was in fact those who "came home". As the boys go back to their homes and slowly begin to work through what they have just experienced, it is becoming quite obvious that they have all been in situations when they wondered if they'd come out of them alive. They've seen things that you and I (thankfully) have only seen in films or read about in books or newspapers. As I said in an earlier post, remember - two years ago these boys were finishing high school. We are often portrayed as a belligerent and militaristic country. I have not spoken to, or heard of, one soldier who went into Gaza looking for a fight. On the contrary, none of them wanted to go there and they were all glad to get out. It was just something they had to do. Israel is not belligerent by nature - the 'belligerence' that others see is just one of man's basic needs (and rights) - to defend himself in order to survive. One of our leading politicans recently said something along the lines of 'When the other side lays down its weapons, there will be no violence; when we lay down our weapons, there will be no Israel'. Somehow that seems to get lost in the reporting...



In my friend's other e-mail, which was a general update of the situation, she did the count that every parent in Israel does. Her oldest son has eight years to go before he will be called up. My son has less than two years. I'm sure I speak for her too when I say that I would much rather be counting the number of years before they go to university and not to the army. However, why am not so optimistic?

A week (or so) "after"

As you can see, I've taken a rest from writing - there were just so many things that needed doing after being cooped up at home for about three weeks (still haven't had my hair cut yet - but that shouldn't take too long...). I don't think we consciously decided not to go out or stop doing 'ordinary' things during those three weeks, but there was definitely a feeling of freedom floating around on those first few days "after".



The students (and teachers, of course) have gone back to school after a surprise four week holiday. It's not easy for them at all. Some are doing Winter matriculation exams, and students within a 40 km radius of Gaza have been awarded special accommodations to compensate for the effects of the rockets, which has led to at least one TV commentator complain bitterly that students should not get rewards just because of their geographical location. I wonder how his children would have liked to take exams weeks after they were being bombed and hadn't gone to school?



I'll end this short post with an interesting story. When I got back to school, all the students, and I mean all the students, were talking about an incident which supposedly happened in Gaza. The various versions go much like this: some soldiers went into a house and a woman dressed in Arab style came and told them to leave because it was booby-trapped. She led them out and helped them on their way. When they asked her why she (an Arab woman) was helping them, she said "I am Rachel" (i.e. wife of Jacob from the Bible) and disappeared. Apparently there are other stories of weird, mysterious and miraculous events happening. As I said, this story has spread like wildfire, however, until I see an interview with the soldiers who experienced this, I'm afraid I'm putting it down to the birth of yet another urban myth.