Emek HaElah

This is the valley ("emek" in Hebrew) where David and Goliath so fatefully met. Actually seeing the geography makes a huge difference in understanding the Torah. Samson lived not far from here, and seeing how this Dan territory was right on the frontier with the aggressive Iron-Age Philistines, the tribe's subsequent move to the far north is more understandable.

The Philistines controlled the southern city states on the plain: Gat, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron. One route to the heart of the hill country and Jerusalem was through Emek HaElah (Valley of the Terebinth, a kind of indigenous tree still growing here). The stream of the same name which irrigates this valley originates in the Hebron Hills and wanders westward, joined by other streams, until it reaches this valley. The stream takes a sharp turn northwards to round Tel Azeka then turns westward again and meanders towards the Mediterranean.

For the Philistines, an invading people of Mycenean origin, the route to Beth Lechem or Jerusalem was up this valley.

Tel Azeka is what remains of the fortress city of Azekah guarding the pass into Emek HaElah, and from its top one can see the former Philistine lands all the way to the Mediterranean. Azekah was one of the last cities to fall to the Babylonians (the other, more famously known, is Lachish). Since I can personally attest to how high and steep the tel is today, I can understand why the Babylonians might have found this fortified city somewhat of a challenge. After the Babylonian Captivity, this was one of the towns repopulated by the returnees. Today, it is in a national park. complete with picnic tables and barbecues, and covered with forest.

In the time of King Saul, the Philistines massed their army between Azekah and Socho, another hillside town upstream a few miles west of Azekah which commanded a wonderful view over the entire valley. There, below Socho, Goliath challenged the Israelites to personal combat and David stepped forth and into history.

Horbat (ruin) Socho today is a steep, nearly treeless hill containing some remains of ancient wells. It isn't even well marked on the highway, but fortunately my friend Sarah brought her friend Hannah Leah, a tour guide who knew exactly where to turn.

The hill redeems itself in the spring with one of the most spectacular displays of wildflowers in Israel. The valley itself is a verdant green; the kibbutz Netiv HaLamed Heh (the "35" named for the young men who went to resupply beseiged Kfar Etzion and were massacred by the Arab residents of Husan) lies just north of the tel, its almond groves in full blossom.From the top, we could look north and east across the valley. The kibbutz pond below us is a dammed up part of Nahal (stream) HaElah, and reportedly was marshy ground around the time of David's confrontation with Goliath.

What brought us here today was the kalanit, the red anemone which carpets the hills and vales of Israel at this time of year. As residents of Jerusalem, we are higher in elevation than the surrounding countryside, so spring comes a bit later to us. A trip 'downhill' to the Beit Shemesh region where Spring was already in full bloom seemed a great reason to get out of the city and see the kalaniyot and other spring flowers and blossoms of the Sephalah.

The trail was fairly steep, although passable. The most difficult part was my being wholly out of shape for an uphill slog: going to the gym every day is not the same thing as an uphill hike, I found. Hat and water bottle were mandatory--even in milder spring morning, the sun was blazing. No wonder just north of here the town was known as "Beit Shemesh" or House of the Sun.

We picnicked atop the tell, enjoyed the view and my friends tolerated my frequent pauses to take pictures. After Sokho, we visited the forest-crowned Tel Azeka and from there proceeded back towards Jerusalem. Hannah Leah was able to show us a wonderful trail in the forest between Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem.. The trail was cool and quiet, and the forest meadows carpeted in wildflowers. The most astounding item on this walk, though, was something that I initially thought was a log. It wasn't: it was the remains of an ancient Roman road marker, one of a series of pillers that counted off the distances between Jerusalem and Beit Guvrin to the southwest. There is something humbling about standing in front of the last remnant of a road so ancient and thinking of the millions of people who have passed this way before. It is heartening to see that some memory, some remnant of ancient commerce between people, Jewish, Canaanite, Hittite, Greek and Roman, testifies to us from the heart of the forest.

Alongside this trail lay the restored remains of a Byzantine-era oil press. The oil press is one of the most common ruins found in Israel, proof of the regions long-term and wide-spread dependence on the olive tree. Forest has grown up around it now but it stands as a mute memorial to the most ancient of agricultural practices in Israel The march of history surrounds us in our land--today in a matter of hours, we saw remnants from the period of Kings and their Philistine enemies; from the times of the Romans and also their Byzantine inheritors. Yet here we are, still in our land, building, planting, foresting, raising families, toiling and living the Promise G-d made to Avraham at the dawn of time.

* Photos are my own, for a change; trip courtesy of Sarah and history courtesy of Hannah Leah although I take full responsibility for any errors in recounting.

A Time To Mourn

These are the dead:






Yohai Lifshitz, 18, of Jerusalem

Yehonatan Yitzhak Alder, 16, of Shilo

Yehonadav Haim Hirshfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar







Neria Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem

Roy Rot, 18, of Elkana

Segev Peniel Avihail, 15, of Neveh Daniel

Avraham David Mozes, 16, of Efrat







Doron Mahareta, 26, of Ashdod







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My child is 17. He could have been at this yeshiva. He could be dead or wounded or maimed, also.

Thank G-d, he isn't. Thank G-d.

I can still look forward to high school graduation, to seeing his life evolve as he gets older. I can hope for grandchildren, for a happy marriage, for a wife who loves him, for a career that satisfies him, for friends to hang out with.

I didn't have to get up this morning and go to his funeral.

We knew, the Husband and Boy and I, that Something Was Happening last night when we heard the sirens. It's not unusual, just off Derech Hebron, to hear an ambulance on this major traffic artery.

It's not usual, however, to hear a fleet of them racing for city center. This was the soundtrack of the Second Intifada that we used to hear from abroad, on CNN, on Fox, on BBC. Now we're hearing it live.

The murderer was an Arab who lived literally around the corner from us. He lived in Jebel Mukaber, a suburb immediately adjacent to Armon HaNatsiv. If I were to walk to the Tayelet, across the promenade towards the UN-occupied Government House, below that ridge is Jebel Mukaber. The Arabs there shop in our local stores, send their children to the high school in Armon HaNatsiv, and say "shalom" to me when we pass on the Promenade. Their children often ask to pet our dog and oftentimes are encouraged to do so by their parents, once we assure them that she doesn't bite.

His family home was demolished this morning. His parents have set up a 'mourning tent' to commemorate their 'martyred' son who was just a bit older than most of his victims. He was 20 years old. He probably knew his victims: he worked at the yeshiva as a driver. His appearance on the grounds of the school would have raised no suspicions since the students knew him.

He was arrested four months ago by "Israeli authorities," although which branch isn't stated in the news. He was then released two months ago. Someone knew he was a terrorist-in-training but he was released anyway.

The current government's policy of placating the Palestinians by releasing the murderers and their terror-oriented aiders and abettors among them from jail has to stop.

We're stunned by sadness. Death isn't anything new in this land beseiged by Arabs intent on genocide, but somehow this kind of attack, the deliberate murder of the young, numbs the brain and hurts the hearts of all of us. Like Sbarro Pizza, where the mass murderer deliberately sought women and children, this carnage in a school library sickens the strongest of us.

But don't mistake that for weakness. That's the great mistake of Arab policy: these attacks only strengthen our resolve because they foreshadow what waits for all of us if we ever get too tired to fight to our right to live in the freedom of our own rule.

We've seen how the "Palestinians" glorify the deaths of mothers and children (Sbarro Pizza) and now the deaths of students in their school library.We see your children dancing for joy at the murders committed in your name.

Olmert may blather on but most of Israel no longer has the patience for Arab-committed mass murder. There will come a moment, and this is perilously close to it, where we, so long condemned by the diatribes of Arab and Left-wing propagandists, decide that we no longer care what anyone thinks, and our very survival demands a One-State Solution -- called Israel.

Remember what Ronald Reagan said when told by his State Department that the United States needed to continue it's long-term policy of 'containment' of the USSR? "I have a better plan," he announced. "Let's win."

It's time, Israel. Let's win.

Our Adventure in Hebrew Bank Documents

I barely get by in broken Hebrew. (I will go back to ulpan, I will, I will, as soon as this adventure in real estate is finished!) The Husband speaks fairly decent kibbutz Hebrew, and certainly enough to get by in his job at the police department, but he's no whiz at reading it either. After all, we're not dealing with the alphabet here.

You try reading words that are totally different letters and from which the vowels are dropped (vowels are for children--adult words don't have them).

The child reads: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The adult reads: Thqck brwn fx jmps vr thlzy dg.

Now put this into legalese.....

We never go anywhere or deal with anything contractual without Yossi. I don't trust our attorney generally because she now has a track record of poor lawyering, in my own attorney-opinion. Nor do I trust her with the re-issued bank documents on the mortgage which she has hustled up, since she has a conflict of interest: her goal is to get us to sign these documents as fast as possible and get her out from under a potential malpractice suit.

We go the Bank Leumi's Head Guy In Charge Of Problems With Mortgages. You have to get by security to see this guy. He has the new contract all prepared, as our attorney promised.

He asked for our identifications, which we provide. He next pushed the entire contract, several inches of paper, towards us, and directs us to sign the first page. This will take some time: if you've never seen a bank contract in Israel, even for something as simple as opening a checking account, you'd be surprised. Several trees died to make this contract.

"What am I signing?" I asked.

He looked taken aback. First, there were two men present and the female was talking. Obviously it surprised him that I was asking the question instead of my husband or Yossi.

"She's an attorney in the United States," Yossi explained.

Bank Guy pursed his lips, looked pained, and told me its the mortgage. Yes, I know that but WHAT am I signing and where is the payment schedule.

"We'll get to that," he tells me.

Wrong answer, buster. I picked up the entire sheaf of paper and began paging through it. My husband, accustomed to my attitude towards contracts, simply waits. Yossi, who doesn't want me to tick off the bank, tries to assure me it's okay. I keep leafing through the contract, looking for shekel amounts.

We go ahead and start signing the boilerplate stuff but I'm still leafing through the rest of the contract looking for some sign that money is involved. Finally, I find a page with two separate amounts on it.

"What's this say?" I asked Yossi, pushing it over to him.

He reads it, frowns, then asks Bank Guy a question, listens to the answer, tells Bank Guy its not correct, gets disagreement from Bank Guy...then Yossi says, "STOP! Don't sign another thing."

Even I could follow this Hebrew.

"They have to sign it," Bank Guy tells Yossi.

"No, they don't. You need to fix this," Yossi responds.

"This is the way it is. They have to sign, or they have a problem." Bank Guy counters.

"THEY don't have any problem," Yossi fires back. "YOU have the problem, the attorney has the problem, the Buyer has the problem and his attorney has the problem -- but THEY don't have a problem. They don't have to be here doing this for anyone. They're doing this because they're honest and YOU need to fix this!" he adds, pointing to the shekel amounts.

"I don't have the permission. I'd have to call Tel Aviv and see if they'll give me permission. It's not usual." Bank Guy counters.

Yossi stands up, picks up his keys, and calmly tells him, "They'll give you permission. Believe this. Tel Aviv wants this mess fixed. They'll agree when you tell them that these people aren't signing anything until this is fixed."

Bank Guy shrugs. "I'll ask for permission. I'll call you tomorrow and let you know what Tel Aviv says."

"B'seder, I appreciate it. I'll expect a call tomorrow, then," Yossi tells him.

Yeah, we weren't signing it. In the last post, I explained that we took a little tiny mortgage. The bank, happy with our income and expense proofs and our credit rating, was delighted to extend to us an enormous line of credit. Very flattering, thank you very much, but we don't need all that....we're only taking this little bit, okay?

The contract which Bank Guy shoved in front of us showed two amounts, one of which was the entire line of credit. In part of the conversation with Yossi which I didn't completely follow, Bank Guy assured Yossi that we'd only be responsible for that which we actually borrowed, but Yossi very correctly pointed out that that's NOT what the contract actually said. Bank Guy said something about a schedule of payments being attached later reflecting the true amount borrowed, etc but Yossi wasn't buying it.

He told Bank Guy that the mortgage contract was to state the exact shekel amount to be repaid and nothing else.

"You don't want to try to straighten this out ten years from now when someone from Tel Aviv looks at your file and decides you signed an agreement to repay the LOC amount and not what you really borrowed," he told us when we left the bank. "The way the contract is written, it's not clear, it's....." he searched for a word.

"Ambiguous," I offered.

"What's this, am-bi-gwas?" Yossi asked.

"A big word for 'not clear'," the Husband interjected drily. "But you're right," he told Yossi. "I don't want to be trying to prove the facts of this ten years from now with fading memories and no paper trail and ambiguous, unclear papers."

"Bidyuch!" Yossi agreed fervently. "I told him to make new papers with the correct amount, and he told me he needs the permission from Tel Aviv. He tells me you have a problem with this mortgage, and I say to him, no problem! They have all the money in their bank account. YOU have the problem, you and the lawyers. Make this right and no one has a problem." He smiled. "He'll get the permission, never worry," he told us.

48 hours later we were back at Bank Leumi signing corrected documents that reflected exactly what Yossi told Bank Guy to put in -- the amount borrowed, not the LOC amount.

"Y'know," the Husband pointed out, "Yossi hasn't had a thing to eat all day. What do you say we take you out to lunch, Yossi?"

"Sure, what you want," he agreed easily. "But you don't have to if you have other things to do."

The Husband smiled. "I think a lunch is in order, my friend. At least a lunch. You caught that 'bank error' and potentially just saved us about $200,000."

How We (Almost) Got A Free House

Good thing that we're honest people.....

We sold the Modi'in cottage. As many of you know already, there is no such thing as a Title Company here in The Land. Lawyers do that work. Never never never never do anything without a lawyer we were told.

With good reason, it turns out...

House selling is on the installment plan. We sold our place and between us, the buyers and our respective attorneys, we worked out a schedule of payments. There were to be four payments: one at the contract signing, another in 60 days, the BIG installment payment upon getting notice that the Builder will turn over the "04" (a form indicating he's done and we're the new owners), which arrives about 30 days before construction is finished, and a final payment that should sit with the attorney in escrow until all the taxes are untangled and paid.

The final two payments, once we (read: Yossi) wrung them out of the Buyer, go into our attorney's trust account. She transfers all but a small amount for the taxes to our account. While the wrangling over the payments, the scheduling of such, and the kinds of checks (bank or personal) wear on, the money nonetheless makes its way into our account.

I asked my attorney several times during this process about paying off the small mortgage we have at Bank Leumi. While we could have paid cash for the cottage, we decided a small mortgage was more advantageous as it left us cash to work with. No problem, she told me breezily--when we get to that point, I'll take care of it.

Okay.

I'm still not clear on how this works, so I put the question to the bank officer I've been working with. "Oh, its pretty much automatic," she tells me cheerily. "We just transfer the mortgage from the cottage to the penthouse."

Huh?

Nevermind. This is what I have an attorney for, I tell myself.

Two weeks ago, I got tired of being brushed off by all concerned, because another pressing problem is that when one takes out a mortgage, the bank very reasonably insists on life insurance to cover that mortgage. In a country beset by war, terrorism and rocket attacks, this is not unreasonable, however galling it may be. My concern is that my paperwork all shows that the insurance is for the cottage in Modi'in and not for our new place in Jerusalem.

My attorney is, as usual, too busy to talk to me and never returns my calls, so I go to the bank officer instead.

She looks at my paperwork. "Did you sell the cottage?" she asks, a frown forming.

Last November, I tell her.

"What!!?" she almost shrieks. The frown deepens, and the formerly cheery bank officer gives me a look I'm quite certain she reserves for money launderers.

"Where's the money?" she demands.

"In the bank," I said, a bit taken aback by her hostility.

"WHAT bank?" she almost shouted.

"OUR bank, in our account," I answered, still bewildered. "It's okay, it's 'locked up' for the penthouse payments," I tried to reassure her. Here there is an option to "lock" up a certain amount of money in one's checking account for a period of time with a fixed interest rate, like a CD--and of course, that rate is negotiable.

"How did this happen?!" she demanded.

"How did WHAT happen?" I'm now completely lost. Rapid fire Hebrew ensued between her, her fellow bank officer who was perusing the computer and talking excitedly to her, and Yossi, who fortunately had come with me. Finally Yossi tells the computer guy to give him a list. Computer guy gives him a list of five items, Yossi thanks him and says, "Come, Sarah."

"What happened? Where are we going?" I ask. "What happened back there?"

"Altidagi, motek," he says with a 'calm down' gesture. We're going over to your attorney's office," he adds. Fortunately the law office is only two blocks away.

When we arrive, it is like arriving in an overturned anthill. I see our attorney in the front secretarial bay, a cellphone in one hand, a paper in the other, shouting, "Call Sarah. If you can't reach her, call Yossi! No, call Yossi anyway!"

Yossi calls out, "We're here." He hands her the note from the bank officer. The attorney who never had time to come to the phone or return phone calls suddenly cancels the day's appointments and wisks us into a conference room. I am suddenly The Most Important Client, and the focus of complete attention.

It seems my attorney, along with the Buyer's attorney, neglected to take care of the small mortgage on the Modi'in cottage. In one of the quirks of Israeli law (descended from Turkish and British law) that loan is affixed like a leach to the property in Modi'in until it is paid off!

All this money flowed from Buyer to Buyer's attorney to Seller's attorney to Seller without either attorney checking to make sure the mortgage was cleared and Buyer could take clear title.

The bank is hysterical because the bank (no doubt correctly) foresees both attorneys mounting a defense to their own malfeasance and refusing to pay off this mortgage; the Buyer is going to sue everyone if he doesn't kill the attorneys first.

Even my attorney tries a wiggle. "You never told me you had a mortgage on this property, did you?" is the question, with a broad smile.

With a crocodilian smile back, I assured my advocate that not only had I said I had a mortgage, but on several occasions since the sales contract was signed, I had asked precisely what was the procedure for dealing with the cottage mortgage and how would I 'transfer' it to the penthouse; and as recently as early February (I would have to check my notes to be sure of the exact date) you told me not to worry, you would take care of it. Toothy smiles all around. My smile said, I'm not taking the fall for your screw up.

In short, we got all the money. We don't need no stinking mortgage. What mortgage there was is no longer technically ours since it's attached to a property we don't own and the new owner needs to thrash out exactly who is going to pay for this mess between the bank and the two attorneys. Lawsuits and cross-suits were about to break out like weeds.

No wonder I was the Client of the Day.

Ahem. This is why it's a good thing we're honest people. Yossi explained after we ironed all this out that half the people in Israel would've said, "Wheeee! Bank error in MY favor! All the money is in our account, so all of you suckers figure out which of you is going to pay the piper for this mistake!"

Instead, I said, "Then why don't you simply call the bank, have them draft a new mortgage in the same amount for the penthouse, and then we'll still be liable for the amount, and the bank can clear the Buyer's title and everyone will be satisfied?"

Stunned silence. Right. My attorney is suddenly busy with a flurry of phone calls to bank officers all the way up to the VP of Something Special in Tel Aviv and sure enough, those papers will be ready for us to sign tomorrow! (Presumably before the Buyer finds out he almost got screwed.)

We signed the papers. The formal clearing of title will take about a month, but I think I heard sighs of relief from two law offices and about 14 bank officials after we signed.

Signing was another story, and once more, Yossi saved our collective olim tushes....

The Real "Legitimate Resistance"

I've been trying to take a break from blogging to deal with neurology appointsment, school issues, bank and house-building issues (a post in itself) but I couldn't refrain from comment today.

Anyone watching the news knows that Hamas has escalated its rocket attacks on Israel, yesterday reaching the grounds of a hospital in Ashkelon, the usual civilian targets in Sderot, and Sapir College in the Negev, a haven of left-wing idealistic multicultural universalism which provides Bachelor's degrees to both Arabs and Jews. Yesterday's attack killed a father of four children as he stood in the parking lot. One of the students taken away by ambulance was an Arab student wearing hijab, a symbol of her adherence to Islam.

And the comment from our Moslem "peace partner" on the Palestinian side, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen, because all guerilla fighters have to have a nom de guerre, even terrorists who masquerade as 'freedom fighters' while massacring unarmed students and women on civilian buses), the current gang-boss of Fatah and the West Bank (for the moment)?

He not only didn't condemn the deaths and injuries of civilians, but spoke with pride about the fact that he was the one to "fire the first bullet of the resistance" back in 1965. He added that it was the PLO that taught many around the world "how to resist, when resistance is most effective and when it is not."

In 1965??!! Hello, world!! Are you listening? WHAT resistance was the PLO leading in 1965? The Six Day War was in 1967, and prior to that war, the West Bank and Gaza Strip were owned and operated by Terror, Inc (oops, I mean the "Palestine Liberation Organization"). The PLO was funded, armed and trained in terror camps in Jordanian-occupied West Bank and Egyptian-occupied Gaza, then sent across those cease-fire lines to terrorize Israeli civilians....and there was no Occupied West Bank or Gaza to "liberate."

There was nothing to liberate in 1965 -- except Israel. That's right. The PLO was founded and funded with one goal and only one goal--the destruction of the State of Israel. Never mind that the League of Nations and the U.N. voted on this issue and agreed to provide the indigenous Jews with their own statehood (European genocide and Arab expulsion added to the population) alongside the Arab state which would have been "Palestine." The Arab world went to war to prevent the fruition of this U.N. vote, and lost. Jordan took the West Bank and annexed it to Jordan; Egypt held Gaza as their colony, not allowing Arabs there to enter Egypt, leave Gaza, or build homes instead of refugee camps. Egypt deported its own Muslim Brotherhood problem to Gaza to teach the Arabs there that everything was Israel's fault, jihadism was the solution, and terrorism was "legitimate resistance."

In 1965, "liberation" was nothing more than Orwellian Newspeak for "Annihilation."

Nonetheless, Israel was established fact in 1948. The Arab League then spent the next 19 years launching terror attacks against Israelis from Gazan and West Bank territories until the Arab states rearmed sufficiently to launch the Six Day War with Russia's backing. They lost that one, too. And Israel ended up with the West Bank and Gaza. In 1967!

So, Abbas, our alleged "peace partner" prides himself on firing the first bullet of the resistance in 1965? I wonder if he understands the import of what he just said? He's proclaiming to the world that "resistance" is not against Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank (we've already surrendered Hamastan, formerly known as the Gaza Strip, in exchange for European plaudits and promises of peace which never materialized) but against the very existence of Israel.

And Olmert is talking to this guy?! We're going to make a "peace deal" with a man who denies the Holocaust happened, and was part of the Arab terror infrastructure before any 'occupation' of 'Palestine' ever happened?

But wait, we're not done!

"Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday that he does not completely rule out the possibility of resuming the armed conflict with Israel."

Oh? Really? And just exactly what has the last 60 years been? Please point out to me when the "armed conflict with Israel" stopped, because frankly, we Israelis haven't noticed. There have been stabbings, shootings, car-bombings, suicide bombings, rocket attacks, mortar attacks, and thrown hand grenades from 1947 until today, without respite.

Since the Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in mid-June 2007, 838 rockets and 937 mortar bombs have been fired at Sderot and the western Negev.

Prior to that, however, Abbas's Fatah was in charge. From the time of Israel's pull-out from Gaza in mid-August 2005 until the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip was 1,826 missiles fired into Israeli territory.

This wasn't "legitimate resistance," Abu Mazen? I guess that indiscriminate murder of Jewish civilians is just the Palestinian version of a hobby...?

Hardly. This is what anyone not blinded by left-wing insanity can see plainly: it's war. It's been war since 1947. It's going to continue to be war until we win or we lose. If we lose, we're dead. If we win, we can, like the Allies before them, dictate the peace.

Wake up, everyone. This exercise in political survivorship by Olmert is setting us all up for mass murder either by Hezbollah, Hamas or Iran or some combination of the three.

And the Palestinians aren't keeping this a secret. Hamas declared months ago that these rocket attacks are strategy. During an interview in August 21, 2007, former Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud A-Zahar explained why Kassam attacks are so much more effective than suicide bombers (apart from my cynical suspicion that its easier to build rockets than recruit martyrs).

In response to the question, why did Hamas chose to stop suicide bombings two years ago, A-Zahar said, "Which do you think is more effective, martyrdom operations or rockets against Sderot? Rockets against Sderot will cause mass migration, greatly disrupt daily lives and government administration and can make a much huger impact on the government. We are using the methods that convince the Israelis that their occupation is costing them too much."

Our "occupation" contested by the Palestinians is not "The Occupation" which the Far Left posits is the problem. The Palestinians are still defining the "occupation" as the very existence of Israel. They don't want the West Bank -- they want it ALL!

No, the people engaged in 'legitimate resistance' are the civilians of Israel's south--the people of Sderot, of Ashkelon, of Sapir College, of the moshavim, kibbutzim and small towns within rocket range. Their steadiness under fire is the true resistance of the human spirit, the real resistance of the Israeli citizen, the resistance of defiance against the terror barrage of ruthless racists who cannot abide a Jewish state in the neighborhood.

The Line Thing

Israelis are the greatest people on earth when it comes to helping each other out. Look at the way the people (not Olmert's government) have rallied around the people of Sderot; look at the way folks responded to Hezbollah's bombardment in 2006; most of us have numerous examples of everyday folk stopping to help someone in need.

The exception to this good-heartedness is The Line.

It doesn't matter which line--any line brings out the heart of darkness in the average Israeli. The line at the pharmacy, the line at the grocery store, the line to get past security at the Mall, the line of traffic on Derech Chevron....

Today, I ran some errands in the morning with Yossi, and we ended up in Armon HaNatsiv at a local grocery store. Because we each had exactly one item, we chose the Express Lane. This lane was better than most, it being Erev Shabbos and the store was packed, but still it was slow because the two elderly women in line in front of us didn't get the concept of "express line" -- their cart was full of 20-30 items.

Ma la'asot?

However, the line backed up behind us and people waited with various degrees of tolerance for the two elderly women to finish. To their credit, they were very quick about it, moving their purchases briskly on to the counter and paying quickly with a credit card at the end. However, the line behind us continued to grow until there were half a dozen men waiting, each with a mere handful of items.

As our purchases were rung up, an extremely elderly man of uncertain balance limped up to the cash register, holding a loaf a bread. The man was obviously frail. He limped slowly to the cashier, gripping his cane. His eyes were rheumy and he appeared very short-sighted. He held the loaf out to the cashier while leaning on the cane and said something quietly in Hebrew.

Pandemonium broke out behind us. The half-dozen men, none older than 50, all of them apparently able-bodied, cried out, "There's a line!" "That's not right, sir!" and other protests to this act of line-cutting.

The cashier, to her credit, ignored them all. She grabbed the loaf of bread, rang it up, made change and sent the elderly customer on his way in under 60 seconds.

The bank was no better. Today is Erev Shabbat and a lot of people are off work or working a half-day. Since we've been snowed in for two days, the lines were worse than usual. My bank has a procedure where you place your card into a machine and the machine prints a ticket to tell you your place in line at various windows. I go inside and walk to the least crowded machine where only one woman is getting a ticket. I stand behind her, but being of American origin, I don't want to crowd her. My mistake. A young man wearing a black kippah immediately walks up behind me, then around me, and stands behind the woman at the machine. I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, adoni -- there's a line and I'm next," I said politely.

"No, I'm next because I've been here at the bank and the teller sent me to another window, and so I have to get a ticket for that window but I've already been here for half an hour, so I'm ahead of you," he declared.

Ma la'asot?

I wasn't in THAT big a hurry, I understood his point as I've been directed to other windows myself, and I simply didn't have the energy to argue in Hebrew about it. I really didn't care all that much.

The Huband has the best standing-in-line story, dating back to his Yotvata days. The softball team was heading for a game in Tel Aviv and the bus pulled into the central bus station in Beersheva. There's a ten-minute break so everyone gets off and rushes over to the felafal stand. The Husband waits patiently in line, orders his felafal, and as the counterman hands the finished felafel to him, a hand appears over his shoulder and snatches the felafal.

The Husband turns around in time to see the guy behind him, a total stranger, chowing down on the felafal.

"What are you doing?! That was MY felafal! I ordered it, I paid for it, and YOU took it!! What were you thinking?!" he roared.

The other guy explains, a bit defensively, "But I'm in a hurry!"

"This is a bus station, you idiot! We're ALL in a hurry!" The Husband roars back.

Shamefaced now, surrounded by a bunch of irritated kibbutznikim softball players, the guy looks down at the hijacked felafal and then holds it out to The Husband. "Do you want it back? You can have it," he offered.

The Husband looked at the felafal, now missing one end where the mooch took a big bite out of it, and declined. "No, I'll order another. I don't want one you've eaten half of already," he said disgustedly.

This is the same mind-set that dictated that the father of several children in a large Hundai van suddenly swerve into my left-turn only lane from Derech Chevron to Ester HaMalca the other morning. I'd made the mistake of leaving daylight between me and the car in front of me, and hey, he's in a hurry, so never mind that we're both transporting our children in heavy traffic -- he simply swerves in front of me and the only way to NOT hit this idiot is to stand on my brakes.

Israelis are the world's most terrific people, in my humble opinion, EXCEPT if you're standing in line with them. Hearts of gold on the street, in the office, in their homes -- but ravening madmen when you put them in a line.

New Kid On The Block

Once again, I am delighted to find (and envious as all get-out, truth be told) an Israeli blogger who writes with flair, drama, humor and writes a lot better than I do. She covers not only Life In Israel, but also her own experience as a an olah chadishah caught in a suicide bombing. Check it out--hit the link in the title of this post or the link on the sidebar for My Shrapnel.

I wish it were in Arabic -- if the Arabs could read this blog, they'd give up on trying to eradicate Israel. If all Israelis has this woman's grit, we'd be absolutely unbeatable!

You go, Gila!

(Thank you, West Bank Mama and Jameel, for getting the word out!)

TW3

Those Yanks old enough to remember That Was The Week That Was (TW3) will also remember that television satire's relentness highlighting of political absurdity.

We just had reality bite: TW3 has come to the Middle East.

First, the bastion of post-Renaissance Enlightenment, Oxford University, held a farcical debate wherein one of the lead speakers declared that "Palestinians have a moral right to terrorism."

Wonderful. If the Palestinians have a "moral right to terrorism" based on their history of losing war after war which they and their "Arab Brethren" allies started and lost, then who doesn't have a "moral right to terrorism?" Please note, United Nations and other world bodies, that your mandate has just been revoked by Oxford and all aggrieved parties now have a right to launch terror attacks to right perceived wrongs.....the Irish can now ethically bomb England; the Tibetans can send suicide bombers into China; Native Americans, African-Americans or even White Supremicists can now right what they perceive as historical wrongs through terror attacks on innocent civilians, according to this twisted political expediency masquerading as debate. We can no longer call the carnage in Rwanda, the Congo, Liberia or Cambodia "terrorism" when it results in the millions of deaths of unarmed civilians, including women and children. No, because once you make a moral exception for one man's grievance, the whole concept of morality goes right out the window.

Second, Hamas skunked the Israeli administration. It was too embarassing to be funny....staged candlelight protests against the non-existant alleged shutdown of Gaza's electricity (while the Askelon plant providing Gaza with power was still running, and buildings were lit up in the rest of the Strip); staged still photos of Gazan politicos 'working by candlelight' in a dramatic scene wherein the photographer forgot to crop out the window showing daylight peaking through the trissim; weeks of cutting away the Rafah Crossing fence that is the border between Egypt and Gaza.....and no one noticed? One PA cop was asked, "Why didn't you report this?" when he admitted witnessing the nighttime blow-torching of the fence. "Report it to whom?" he asked scathingly. "The government (Hamas) was doing it!" That fence cutting preceeded the 'humanitarian crisis' by weeks. This was no spontaneous outpouring of Palestinian need, but a carefully orchestrated propaganda coup.

Third, up to 700,000 Palestinians (or New Egyptians as I like to think of them) poured over the border into Egypt. That's half the population of the Strip. One of two things should've happened at that point--either we should have nudged the rest of them to leave, too, or we should've run to Rafah and slammed that fence back up and announced that they couldn't come back. Thank you, Dumbert and our ever-vacillating coalition of dunderheads, for dithering through this crisis. The returnees will no doubt come back with oil, flour, gasoline, and other basic Gazan necessities, like RPGs, Kalashnikovs and Katyushas now that they no longer need to tunnel under the border.

Fourth, despite the freeway-sized road blasted through the border and the obviously free movement of people in and out of the Strip, the Manchester Guardian, the modern British equivalent of Der Sturmer, steadfastly maintains that Gaza is still "occupied" by Israel inasmuch as Israel won't let Hamas's genocidal thugs cross the border into Israel.

Fifth, the western press has yet to pick up on the fact that the "humanitarian crisis" was a scripted farce. "A top PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas was "holding more than 1.5 million Palestinians hostage" in an attempt to rally the Arab and Muslim masses against the PA and Israel...The official also accused Hamas of ordering owners of bakeries to keep their businesses closed for the second day running to create a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. "Hamas is preventing people from buying bread," he said. "They want to deepen the crisis so as to serve their own interests." The official said that contrary to Hamas's claims, there is enough fuel and flour to keep the bakeries in the Gaza Strip operating for another two months. "Hamas members have stolen most of the fuel in the Gaza Strip to fill their vehicles," he said.

Another week in the Middle East, where 'journalists' drink at the American Colony, file their stories from the bar, and what little field work is employed requires a Hamas (or PA)-certified interpreter to tell the 'journalist' what the score is.

No wonder Israel gets slammed in the court of world opinion. The Arabs have cornered the press who colludes with the Pallywood propaganda to get only one side of the story out. Don't believe me? Go read the Manchester Guardian and it's Comments sections. It will sicken you.