At a ceremony honoring Palestinian propaganda woman Hanan Ashrawi, Sweden's Anna Lindh says that Israel is "losing its moral values" (article). She also slams the "security fence" idea, which the sane portion of the Israeli left views as the alternative to IDF military action against terrorists.

There are actually people who write this kind of stuff (from Islamic Association for Palestine news). And there are apparently even people who believe it.

Saeb Erekat's remark that the IDF action in Gaza is part of Sharon's election campaign (report) is probably best ignored. Unfortunately it's not obvious to a lot of people around the world how much it's a bunch of crock. For most Israelis, the IDF's strike in Gaza, as well as the rocket attacks on Sderot (in Israel proper) that provoked it, are all too familiar to even get noticed much. And the far right's criticism of Sharon is that he is flirting with the notion of a Palestinian state - they're not accusing him of soaking up attacks without responding. And anyway Likud is probably more concerned about Shinui than about the far right.

Powell's remark that Israel must offer Palestinians more than a "phony state diced into a thousand different pieces" is frustrating because it suggests that he agrees with those who are trying to rewrite the history of Camp David.

Two days left before the election. Walking around J-lem today, it seemed to be the maverick parties that had people out on the streets: Shinui, Herut, and Green Leaf...

Friday's Haaretz English edition included an ad from the leftist Meretz party. It listed the party's positions on a variety of social issues. On the Palestinian issue, all they could muster was:

We can feel safe again - by the immediate construction of an effective security fence and by exhausting every possibility for a political accord.

"exhausting every possibility" ?!? Hmmm .... so not even Meretz is willing to come out and say that they think peace with the Palestinians (or even a peace agreement) is a possibility.

I'm not going to be voting this time. I'm forced to make a business trip of sorts to the US (though I'm still unemployed).

Zeev Schiff says that Israel needs a real statesman to lead us out of the current mess. And he thinks that Sharon is not the man, though Schiff does acknowledge the ways in which Sharon has changed over the years.

But who would be a model for a real statesman? Ben-Gurion? Begin? Churchill? .... all around the world statesmen seem to be in short supply these days...

"Jenin, Jenin" is a film made by Israeli-Arab actor Mohammed Bakri which contains personal accounts (and I also heard "reenactments") of "events" from the mythical Jenin massacre. The Israeli film censor deemed the movie inflammatory and banned it from being screening in theaters, but it is being shown nonetheless.

This article describes a screening of the film to skeptical and critical viewers at a college in Tel Aviv. Bakri excised parts of the film before showing it to Israeli audiences. David Zangen, an endocrinologist who did reserve duty together with the IDF unit that fought in Jenin appeared at the screening to debunk the film (in an earlier article translated here Zangen showed that the most dramatic personal accounts from the film can be easily shown false, such as an allegation about a destroyed wing of a hospital)..

A women's leftist group called "Bat-shalom" put on a showed the film Jerusalem and accompanied it a panel of representatives from four different political parties (Collette Avital from Labor, Meretz, Hadash, Green Leaf). Apparently they did something similar in Tel Aviv.

I'm curious as to what extent the film is being shown and abroad and in Arab communities here. It was screened at film festivals in Rome and in Amsterdam where it apparently won a prize. This German-Jewish site takes a positive view of the film. Here's a report on a screening being cancelled (I think), in Padua, Italy. And this Italian site discusses the film in pretentious critical jargon.

Update: Another article on the film.

Masters of the Obvious II Bret Stephens on why it's so wrongheaded to think that suicide bombing is an act of desperation.

Sam Rivers (!) is playing four concerts with the Israeli Camerata at the end of the month.

Masters of the Obvious This essay critiques Mitzna's plan for unilateral withdrawal, and criticizes Mitzna as an ideologue in a post-ideological era.

Author Yossi Klein-Halevi thinks that Sharon is a flexible pragmatist, and not the settlement-boosting former general that Thomas Friedman portrays..

I'm skeptical about this, though it sounds well-sourced. Seen nothing remotely related in the Israeli press.

Here's a translation of a message that a friend in Tel Aviv received from her employer:

1. Currently we are involved with emergency planning for our office. Among other things we intend to verify that it will be possible to continue to provide service to our clients even in the event that (some or all) employees are unable to travel to work, or in the case that the office itself is damaged. In such an instance, there will be activated a central computer database with our business data.

Since our supply of laptops is limited, we are asking that you investigate the possibility of using your private computers to connect to the office.

Please fill out the attached form and return it to xxxxx.

2. At this time, we present a special offer from Kavei Zahav to our employees for installation of ADSL at a special price.
....

This past weekend was great weather for hiking up north, and for sitting out on the balcony at the kibbutz guest house. T. and I hiked in the Carmel forest, at Nahal Tavor next to Kibbutz Gazit (above), and walked up the said-to-be-volcanic Karnei-Hittin (of which a photo appears in Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad).

Next to the highway just north of Netanya there's an open field where some people propped up row after row of placards saying "Mitzna is virtuous" (or something like that) with a picture of Mitzna looking virtuous. At Kibbutz Gazit there were signs for Meretz. At the adjacent Arab village (Kafr Mizr?), the popular party was the one with a 2 letter logo that included the Arabic letter that resembles an epsilon.

The kibbutz where we stayed caters to a religious clientele. So instead of regular cable TV, there were Saudi cable channels (eg, Showtime Arabia), that showed airplane versions of Hollywood movies.

When I travel up north I try to stay clear of the Wadi Ara highway, especially at night. There hasn't been much trouble on the road recently, but the area is prone to infiltrations like the one tonight where 3 terrorists entered Moshav Gadish and killed a father of four (report).

Marchamont Needham asks some questions:

What happens if Shinui ends up holding the balance of power? What's the chance they'd join a left-wing coalition with Labor? If they join with Likud, what limits does that place on Palestinian policy? Can you make a right wing coalition based on Shinui and Likud that doesn't include the religious parties? Can Shinui co-exist in coalition with any of the religious parties?

If the religious keep their draft exemptions, etc., but are cut off from special funding by the state, will that blunt the resentment of most secular Israelis? That is, do they mind forking over tax dollars more, or do they mind the (informal) special status accorded the religious?

Shinui could join a "centrist" coalition together with Labor and Likud, if Labor were willing to go that direction. The arithmetic wouldn't countenance them joining a left-wing gov't, and I think their leadership wouldn't be interested either. In their campaign, Shinui is trying to "triangulate" on the security/Palestinian issue saying: we're not overaggressive like Likud or pushovers like Labor. Shinui can NOT coexist with religious parties, which will make coalition-building hard for Sharon.

It's difficult to imagine signifcant change regarding Orthodox draft exemptions and funding. Maybe funding would be reduced somewhat, but the Arab parties also support the Large Families law, and the IDF is not in any hurry to draft thousands of Hasidim etc.

More: RibbityFrog mentions that some people think that a Likud-Labor-Shinui coalition would undermine core support of the Likud. Gil says that the leader of Shinui has said he would be willing to be in a coalition with the National Religious Party, as their supporters serve in the Army and are not reliant on gov't assistance; but the NRP might be more hesitant.

I'm going up north for 3 days. No time to respond to some good questions and talk about why there's not much alternative to voting Likud despite the scandals. See you Sunday.

What happens if you hold a symposium in Jerusalem and ask foreign journalists how they view the upcoming Israeli elections? Their initial reaction will be to tell you what their editors are interested in hearing about.

At the symposium earlier tonight, CNN's Mike Hanna wouldn't discuss the "internals of the election", saying that he wanted to hear the perceptions of the audience. CNN initially decided that it wasn't much interested in the election, but ultimately is placing a lot of resources here in anticipation of the war with Iraq and is now paying somewhat more attention.

Peter Herman of the Baltimore Sun, who was until recently on the Baltimore police beat, said that "politics is not [his] thing". After describing what his editors are after, he said that the contrasts between Israeli and American politics are more interesting than the scandals affecting the Likud. Specifically notable was the ease with which politicians modified their stances - as exemplified by Mitzna's recent statement (which I had missed hearing about) that he would now insist on retaining 2 settlements in Gaza.

The editors at the UK Daily Telegraph are interested in a story about a political "clash of the titans" that will determine Israel's future, says reporter Alan Philips, but that story will happen after the election when the governing coalition is being formed. To Philips it's clear, as it is to most Israelis, that Likud will form the next government.

Gisele Dachs of Die Zeit says that her editors are interested foremost in the Iraq situation and issues affecting the Middle East economy. Rather than report on the goings-on among the various Israeli political factions, she proposed a piece that would deal with the current mood of Israeli society, which, in her view, parallels a phenomenon in Germany 10 yrs. ago that translates as "fed up with politics". People don't believe in the slogans anymore, she says, and they expect that there will be another election within a year. Dachs hopes for a Likud-Labor-Shinui coalition, but can imagine being pleasantly surprised by a "leftist blocking coalition" that could prevent Sharon from forming a government.

Chris McGreal of the UK Guardian didn't make it in the end.

In the course of the discussion it was clear that wisecracking Philips was the one who had a real grasp on Israeli society and politics, which he discusses like a game in which he doesn't take sides. Hanna thinks that politicians seek to mislead the public, but aside from a statement about the banning of Azmi Bishara by the election committee he said hardly anything that would indicate that he even reads the local daily papers. Dachs has a familiarity with the country and apparently understands some Hebrew, but her interpretations sound like some kind of "grand synthesis" and are often wrong-headed; also it's strange to me that someone who has been here for so long would put much stock in some report about momentary moderation in the Fatah leadership.

The only dramatic part of the discussion came when an Arab audience member launched into a tirade about the IDF "killing hundreds of people" in Jenin and Nablus "without anyone [in the governing coalition] saying anything". He finally asked the panel what they thought of the ban on Azmi Bishara. All were piously aghast (though I wonder
what they would think of this simple solution), which prompted an elderly British man to jump in and describe in detail Britain's outlawing of Oswald Mosely's BUF (in 1936?). Philips responded with something to the effect that "Well, that was different because Mosely was backing the Nazis who were planning to invade Britain". But much of the audience didn't see any difference.

What I'm left asking is: if the Western media invests so much effort in understanding "why do they [the Muslim world] hate us?", why are foreign reporters here so quick to announce perplexity at the reason Israelis stick with Sharon.

It's really disturbing how accustomed we have become to these attacks ("Twenty killed in double bombing at Tel Aviv bus station" - Jpost, Haaretz).

Walking downtown at around 7 PM, I knew that there had been an attack when I heard a few seconds of radio from a passing car. Didn't hear what they said, but you can tell when they have a reporter or bystander calling in and sounding unsure of what's going on. The reporting that I heard (about an hour after the fact) just sounded too calm. An announcer began an interview with Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai by saying "shalom rav" before asking if this was the most severe attack to hit Tel Aviv in the intifada (that's sort of like saying "good evening").

As it happens, T. and I had just had a quick dinner earlier in the evening at the Sbarro that had been bombed in Aug 2001.

Islamic Jihad is saying that the Tel Aviv attack is "in revenge" for something or other. But it should be obvious that they launch these attacks whenever they can, and that the relative quiet recently is due to the operations of the IDF in the West Bank and now Gaza, rather than any change of heart or goodwill from the Palestinians.

More: Imshin heard the explosion from her apartment. Gil's blog has photographs of the attack.

There's a lot of controversy about the Central Elections Commission having excluded Arab party leaders Azmi Bishara and Ahmed Tibi from the upcoming elections. I am fairly certain that whatever public statements they have made in support of violence against Israeli civilians and overturning the notion of a Jewish state are extremely mild compared to what they say in private. But it's not clear to me that their presence in the Knesset has damaged the state in any way. If there were a "moderate" Arab party which focused on improving government services and opportunities in the Arab sector while pushing a conciliatory line towards the Palestinians, it could be a natural partner for Labor. Having Bishara and Tibi allows Israeli Arabs to demonstrate that many of them still prefer the confrontational and less democratic approach.

This is an interesting article which discusses whether the Arab-Israeli conflict should be viewed as a clash of interests or a clash of civilizations. Avishai Margalit, the liberal professor who writes about Isaiah Berlin and other subjects for the New York Review of Books, thinks that the Palestinian sense of humiliation contributes to an emphasis of the "civilizational" aspect of the conflict - regardless of whether the particular "humiliating" practices like checkpoints and thorough searches are justified. It's not clear whether he recommends sacrificing Israeli lives to preserve Palestinian dignity. That's a proposition that not many other countries (or airlines for that matter) would actually consider.

This article about Israeli-Arab lawyer Mohammed Dahla, who founded the civil rights organization Adalah, indicates that he sees the Arab-Israeli conflict as a conflict of civilizations. For him, what the Jews did to the Arabs in 1948 (or what he thinks they did) was a kind of metaphysical, irreparable evil.

Welcome to those who arrived from this Belgian portal. Please leave me a message or email me to let me know what you think of my weblog.

I haven't been writing as much as I used to, so you might want to look at some archive postings.

This article follows an IDF unit as it destroys the Tul Karm apartment belonging to the family of Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan entered Kibbutz Metzer on Nov 10 and went on a killing spree; he murdered 5 civilians, including two toddlers who were killed in their beds.

IDF demolitions are currently conducted with a kind of bureaucratic coldness (soldiers are now prohibited from vengeful or emotional flourishes).

In the print edition there are photos of Sirhan's father and mother, who look like they are just then being told of the operation; and of the apartment - which looks modern and roomy. Sirhan's father says that he opposes all terrorism, but hung pictures of "martyrs" in his living room.

The uncertain threat of missiles from Iraq during an American offensive is less serious to Israel than the almost certain threat of attacks by Hezbullah from across the Lebanese border. The IDF is likely to respond or launch a pre-emptive operation against Hezbullah, and is also likely to move against the largely untouched Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. This is according to Amir Oren, who also records that an Arrow missile interceptor (successor to Patriot) is launched by pressing the F2 key on a PC keyboard.

Bret Stephens fisks an NY Times op-ed by Saeb Erekat called "Saving the two-state solution" here. As usual, Erekat lies and misrepresents everything from Palestinian intentions to the number of settlers and settlements and Israeli water use - and noone seems to care.