The following is a short excerpt from a much longer article originally in Hebrew. It is a first hand report of a disillusioned Israeli Leftist Peace whose illusions of coming to some understanding with our Palestinian neighbours were shattered when she finally had an open heart-to-heart exchange with a group of them.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve written something for my blog or just for my personal pleasure (read ‘prose’ or ‘fiction’). One would think that the well of decades has dried up! In fact, my life is filled with an endless stream of words. Mornings and afternoons I learn Jewish Jurisprudence, philosophy and scripture. During this endeavor I and my learning partners pour over generation after generation of Jewish scholars, attempt to the best…
I did not join my sons when they joined Likud to support Faiglin. Unfortunately I was correct. The “system” was not going to let something as stupid as aspirations of democratic process unseat the powers that be. But this time it is different – not because Mafdal is purer or aspires to the realization of democratic process more than the other pretenders to political power – but because of the tens of thousands of young…
When my wife and I were engaged to be married, I was serving my Regular Army service in the IDF. Except for a very rare telephone call (we lived on a kibbutz where the only phones were public or in the office) we communicated by postcards. Postcards that often arrived after I did due to the diligence of the military censors. Years later, although we were distances apart when I served in reserves, there was always cellphones. If I traveled abroad,…
In January 25, 2009 Bob Simons had this to say: “Palestinians … when they want to travel from one town to another, they have to submit to humiliating delays at checkpoints and roadblocks. There are more than 600 of them on the West Bank.” In April 22, 2012 he had this to say: “For all Palestinians, just leaving Bethlehem is a struggle. Getting to Jerusalem, only seven miles away, whether it’s to pray, go to…
Some powerful insights from a man who sees reality in terms of generations and centuries. Rabbi Berl Wein, one of Judaism’s popular English language lecturers has an interesting assessment of whom the Internal enemies of Israeli society really are! There was once a fascinating commentary on life in the form of a comic strip called Pogo. One of its most telling captions to my memory was the paraphrasing of the famous line “We have met…
Someone wrote a powerful book, describing a future world where the single authoritative voice of public opinion, public consciousness broadcast from the walls of every room human beings inhabited. A society where the very thought of Freedom of Thought (let alone speech) was heresy. When I first read the book, way back in the 1960′s, I thought it allegorical. It seemed to me that the author was describing a reality akin to Nazi Germany or Communist Soviet Union…
For the longest time I’ve listened to conversation of the deaf between the liberal Israeli Left and the Muslim world. It was so obvious to me that both sides were talking a different language, albiet using English words. I recently read an essay by Dror Eydar in Israel Hayom. Talk about an apology to Turkey comes under the category of a rational Western debate. In fact, in a liberal debate, an apology is perceived as…
I’ll be honest. I really do not understand American politics. Still, I do read English (or at least the Canadian dialect) and do see things that I think I understand, and that occasionally impress me. The following excerpt caught my eye, specifically because I truly believe exactly the same accusation could be made against the Israeli Political Establishment.
Much was made of President Obama’s dismissal of the idea of American exceptionalism, when he noted that the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism, etc. No doubt Achilles believed in the latter, as Hector believed in Trojan exceptionalism. But in many ways there truly is no more exceptional a nation than modern Israel.
