Israeli Army YouTube, Blog pages

Go check 'em out:

• http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk
• http://idfspokesperson.com/

Gaza: The real reasons Israel - finally - retaliated (Update 4)

High resolution map of the Gaza area. Click on the image for a close-up view. (University of Texas)

Read this, and then feel free to come back and talk to me about the "disproportionate" Israel response to over 10,000 rockets, mortars and terror incursions that have gone largely under and just plain unreported by the international press for, oh, 'bout the last 7-8 years.

I'm here. Listening. Waiting. I dare you. Really.

Update: Click here for a clear, in-depth audio interview with a British resident of Sderot on the current situation.

Meanwhile: A Twitter Kassam feed.


(Courtesy SderotMedia.com)

Above is a amalgam of video clips showing how Sderot residents (and thousands of other Israelis in rocket range of the Gaza Strip) have been living for the past 7 years.

The interviewer is asking the child about the "fun day" activities in Sderot, when they are interrupted by the town loudspeaker announcing "Color Red," the alert for an incoming rocket attack.

Residents have 15 seconds to reach shelter, before the missile slams down. About the same amount of time it took you to read this far.

The rest that follows should be clear enough.
---


Caption: we're not the State's sitting ducks." Young Sderot residents don red and black armbands in a protest against ongoing Hamas-led Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza against their southern Israeli town in 2006. (File photo: Dave Bender)

Resident of an Israeli farm bordering Gaza looking at a hole blasted in a wall of her house by a Kassam rocket, that killed her son's girlfriend in 2004. (Photo: Dave Bender)


View from the other side of the wall of the shattered room. (Photo: Dave Bender)

Here's what local residents throughout the south of Israel are reading this evening:

Dec 27^th, 2008

Israeli Communities within Range of Rocket Fire – Emergency Instructions for Civilian Population

The firing of rockets at Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza Strip is expected to continue over the next few days, and may expand to additional area. Therefore, residents are requested to follow directions for preparing a protected room and act in accordance with the instructions at the sound of an alarm, an explosion, or a "Color Red" alert.

Residents of villages adjacent to the security fence are asked to remain within shelters tomorrow, in close proximity to protected areas, and are requested not to assemble in groups.

All schools and commercial centers will remain closed, with the exception of vital services, such as medical centers, grocery stores and public transit will operate on a limited schedule.

Residents in the rest of the villages within range of up to ten km of the Gaza security fence are directed to ensure that they are no more than fifteen seconds from a protected area. Public gatherings in this perimeter are forbidden.

Residents of towns in the range of ten to twenty kilometers from Gaza , must be able to enter sheltered areas within thirty seconds. This area includes the cities of Ahkelon, Netivot and the surrounding towns. In these towns, gatherings of up to 100 people are allowed to be held only under reinforced ceilings. Commercial activity will only be allowed to take place in reinforced buildings.

Residents of towns in the range of twenty to thirty kilometers from Gaza , must be able to enter sheltered areas within forty-five seconds, and gatherings of up to 500 people are allowed to be held only under reinforced ceilings.. This area includes the cities of Ashdod , Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Mal'achi, Ofakim, Rahat, and the surrounding towns. Educational activity will take place in reinforced buildings only. Commercial activity will only be allowed to take place in reinforced buildings.

A number of important issues for the population:

• The Home Front command has advised the local authorities to open the public shelters. Entrance to the shelters is advised only if they are reachable within the aforementioned time frames.
• Gatherings near rocket attack sites should be avoided. Unidentified objects and rockets should not be approached. In such instances the police should be notified.
• Adhering to these guidelines and entering sheltered rooms - saves lives.
• Additional information can be obtained via the Home Front Command's hot line 1207 and website: www.oref.org.il.

Just sayin'.

Update:

Listening to the Israeli radio stations through the night there (Saturday night here), I hear, over and over, Israeli songs that are always played when there's a genuine "warlike" situation nationally.

Mostly local hits from the 1960's and 70's, along with a smattering of Europop faves. Nothing "nationalistic," or militaristic mind you, just an accent on songs - many of them pretty odes to a simpler day, that have pretty much served as the soundtrack of Israeli society through war and national crisis. Like American's talking about the "good ole' days" of television around the "national campfire."

Ok - slight update: Army radio (one of Israel's most trusted, iconoclastic and non-propagandaish news outlooks, btw), is playing James Brown's "It's A Man's World." Go figgur.'

No massive message here - feel free to add your own, though.

Mumbai: Repaying Carnage with Kedusha

A moving tribute and call to action from R' Tzvi Freeman of Chabad:

"We're all in pain. We're all stunned. But you are asking questions you know you cannot answer. Why? How will that help anyone? What we need now is strength and courage. What we need now is to regather our forces and to rebuild.

"We knew beforehand that we are at war with an enemy. We knew that the world needs to be healed, that it oozes with a venomous darkness, and that darkness will not sit passively as we steal away its dominion. We knew that the more we fight this darkness, the harder it will fight back. We didn't fool ourselves. We decided we will fight and we will win. That is why Gavriel and Rivky went where they went. They went not as tourists, but as fearless soldiers.

Once you are at war, you don't stop to ponder all over again—can we win? Is this worth it? Maybe they're worse than we thought? That's deadly. If you would rather stay home and enjoy comfort while the rest of the world sits out in the cold, you should have decided that a long time ago. Now you are out there on the field of battle, you have already awakened the bear from its den, now there is no turning back.

They are darkness. We are light. They storm the shores with death in their eyes. We come to teach compassion and acts of beauty. They carry assault rifles and grenades. We carry candles for Friday night, a Torah of wisdom, joy and beauty.

Are we to surrender before them? Are we to stop and cry and ask, "maybe we're fighting the wrong battle"?

This Saturday night, a young couple is leaving Israel to take the place of the Gavriel and Rivky. We, all of us, will help them. The Chabad House of Mumbai had five stories. We will build a ten-story Chabad House in Mumbai, with greater light, with greater joy, with even more voices singing the Shabbat songs and children kissing the Torah scroll. We will build with a vengeance. We will fill the world with light and wisdom and the spirit of darkness in men's hearts shall forever perish. They come with their guns and their might, with a god of destruction and terror, but we come in the name of the Eternal, the source of all life and healing. They and all memory of them will vanish from the face of the earth and our lamp will burn forever.

May the Almighty G‑d hear the cry of their blood from the earth and put an end to all sorrow. May it be very soon, sooner than we can imagine.

Amen.

Kristallnacht: Then and Now

(Click on the image to read the headlines)

Two items from Aish for The 70th commemoration of Kristallnacht:

This November Jewish communities throughout the world will again gather to recall Kristallnacht -- and will unwittingly allow themselves, in some measure, to verbally embrace the very heresy that abetted the Holocaust.

Kristallnacht is German for "the night of crystal." And 70 years after the horrible events of 1938 should have given us by now sufficient perspective to expose the lie of a horrible WMD -- Word of Mass Deception -- that epitomizes the key to the most powerful methodology for murder perfected by the Nazis.

How, after all, were the Nazis able to commit their crimes under the veneer of civilized respectability? Upon analysis, the answer is obvious. They glorified the principle of murder by euphemism.

Read the rest.
---
If you were a Jew in Europe in 1941, and you actually knew that Hitler was developing the means to carry out his threat to exterminate the Jews, what would you do? Dismiss the danger as overstated? Try to arouse the nations of the world to stop him? Or take upon yourself to employ every means possible -- both physically and spiritually -- to avert the catastrophe?

A must read.

Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda (original photography)

Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda 1 (Dave Bender)

Yitzhak Peretz is a devout Moroccan Jew who immigrated to Israel in the 1980's. He owns a small tailor shop across the street from Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market. I stopped in one day, looking to repair my backpack.

Peretz's pride and "old-world" manner, innate respect for his lifelong profession, and his clientele impressed me as I waited for him to finish the repair.


Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda 2 (Dave Bender)

I was rapt, watching his hands and eyes as he worked on his ancient sewing machine. He said he'd brought it with him from Morocco to Israel.


Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda 3 (Dave Bender)

As I waited for him to complete the work on my pack, another customer came in. Peretz proudly displayed his completed repairs on a handbag she'd brought in earlier.

Caption Contest: 'American Change in Jerusalem' (original photography)

"American Change in Jerusalem" (Dave Bender)

Any connection to the presidential elections is strictly coincidental...

This is one of my favorite shots.

The elderly man is waiting for a city bus on a freezing, drizzly Friday morning in downtown Jerusalem. The red neon sign behind him is blinking on and off. He's holding fresh flowers and even fresher baked challah bread, to honor the oncoming Sabbath, coming in that evening st sunset.

Looking back on the photo several years after shooting it, for me, he's come to symbolize patience, serenity and calm hope in the face of inclement weather, the vicissitudes of time, and the roaring pace of modern life epitomized by the loud "CHANGE" AMERICAN CHANGE."

I "grabbed" the scene with my first DSLR, a Fuji S5000, soon after purchasing from a shop in town. I shot it from across the street, with the camera mounted on a small tripod, and pressed against a wall to steady it.

Comments are welcome.

Tel Aviv Surfer Sunset (original photograph)

s
A lovely, "end-of-the-surfing day" composition taken during the summer by Pria Bender, my budding daughter photographer. The apple sure don't fall far from the tree...

Hit Israeli tv show: 'Dos'i dating do's and don't's' in Jerusalem

Fellow blogger and Jerusalemite, Brian Blum, comes up with an excellent look at a new Israeli tv program detailing social interactions among the young, knitted kipa crowd; from the "just hanging out together," to the "tefillin date," set.

In his take on the series Srugim (knitted kipas/yarmulkes), he says: " Imagine Melrose Place…with yarmulkes."

Having been a part of that scene at several periods over the years, and judging by the clips I viewed on their site -- it looks like a winner:

"A new TV show that debuted earlier this month on the Israeli satellite company YES is the talk of the town across certain sectors of southern Jerusalem. "Srugim" (in English: "knitted kippas") is an extraordinarily accurate depiction of the religious singles scene in Jerusalem.

"Set in our own neighborhood (Katamon and the German Colony in particular), the show chronicles the trials and tribulations of trying to find one's place in the grueling "swamp" that represents the modern Orthodox world in Jerusalem.

"Though the show is about Israel singles, Anglos in the city will easily recognize their own lives, between coffee dates at local cafes, shul hopping and the ubiquitous plastic bags containing quiches, humus and drinks that singles carry around on Shabbat as they head to a group meal with other like minded young people.

"Srugim is peppered with location shots of local hangouts. And the dumpy apartments with their tiny kitchens will be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who's ever been single in Jerusalem."

It must be a bit deja vu'ish living in the small neighborhood where it's filmed: Observant immigrants and many, many other Israeli singles that I know from the 'hood could very easily wander into a shot and be mistaken for the actors.

Worth a watch, even without the English since it's in Hebrew.

Great post, Brian.

Jerusalem: God's Own WiFi Hotspot

Just so you should know: where to get the best WiFi Internet signal when visiting Jerusalem:

http://www.jerusalemite.net/modules/article_files/get_attached_file.php?article=501&file=8

If only Mark Twain knew...

Jerusalem: come for the terror -- stay for the culture!

No, really. I mean it:

• Israelis may have the blues, but they don't play the blues, which is why they have to rely on Americans to do it for them. Get low down in the (Nile?) Delta with the Jerusalem Blues Project tonight at Mike's Place.

• But if the idea of Anglo-Israeli blues inspires some understandable trepidation, bring the kids to a screening of Madagascar at the Merkaz in the German Colony.

• On Friday, bid fond farewell to the Summer Nights at the Yellow Submarine with a free lineup of world music acts. Or check out Russian boppers Robert Anchipolovski and Leonid Decelman grooving high at D. Grey.

• Shaanan Street, lord and master of chartbusting hip-hop/funk outfit Hadag Nachash, has gone solo for some reason and will be performing live at Beit Avi Chai at 22:30 on Saturday night in support of his just-released album.

• There's something appealingly incongruous about Hebrew-language stage adaptations of popular American films - and if you need an example, look no further than the Jerusalem Theatre's winning production of Rain Man, also on Saturday night.

• Sunday marks the 39th anniversary of the moon landing. Commemorate that triumph of science with a visit to the Bloomfield Science Museum, currently running exhibits on kitchen science and book-making; or just raise a toast to Neil Armstrong while Boston-based Israeli indie rocker Michael Gottlieb plays a free set at HaTaklit.

• On Monday, swing by the Musrara art school to admire the works of its talented students at a special class gallery showing, and wind down the evening with cocktails and the smoky vocal stylings of young chanteuse Shelly Tzarafi at Birman.

• Admire the grace of some of Israel's hottest young dancers Tuesday at a performance by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company at the Israel Museum. Be aware, though: unlike the Calatrava Bridge opening ceremony, no modesty smocks and beanies here.

• And finally, on Wednesday, explore the last love of Anton Chekhov via a play at the reliably high-quality Khan Theater.

There's plenty more happening throughout the city, and as always, all you need to do is click over to the Events section to find it. Have a great weekend.

H-T: http://www.jerusalemite.net/blog/

And this is just a few of the, oh, 'bout a thousand reasons why I frikin' love the place. No, really. I'm not kidding.

2ND TRACTOR TERROR ATTACK IN J'LEM

Tractor at the site of the attack. (Alona Alalaluf/Ynet News)

A tractor driver rammed and flipped over a city bus and several cars in downtown Jerusalem close to 2 pm.

An Israeli civilian, Ya'akov Asael, 56, of the community of Sussiya in the Hebron Hills area, and Border policeman Officer Amal Ghanem shot and killed the attacker, according to Army Radio.

The terror attack took place at the intersection of King David and Keren Hayesod Street, and was a nearly exact copy of a similar attack on July 2.

The intersection is the nexus of three major avenues and the site of three hotels: the Inbal, the King Shlomo, and the nearby King David.

The body of the terrorist lies in the backhoe's cab; bullet holes pepper the window. (Haaretz)

Police say the 22-year-old terrorist managed to drive the backhoe 160 meters (0.09 miles) until he was shot and killed by the two passersby. The spokesman said that police "may change their operational methods in the wake of the attack."

Live footage taken shortly after the attack is here.

Yuval Diskin, who heads Israel's Shabak internal security service said that they had received reports of a planned attack against targets in the city, including the use of a tractor, one hour before the rampage.

Authorities have thrown a gag-order on local reporting of any identifying details of the attacker. The individual was reported to have been working with the tractor, a JCB backhoe at a nearby construction site at the Yemin Moshe cultural and convention center.

Debka.com reports that the driver was "Ghassen Abu Tir from Umm Tuba, a Palestinian village in southeast Jerusalem, who was employed at the building site. He was a relative of Muhammed Abu Tir, a Hamas lawmaker held in an Israeli jail."

Police say they were "familiar" with the assailant, and that he has a criminal record.

Latest reports say 29 people were wounded in the attack, including a mother and her nine-month-old infant, according to Israel Radio. A woman sustained a heart attack, and another individual is in danger of an amputated limb in the attack, according to the spokesperson. The remainder are reported to be suffering from shock.

View Larger Map

Diplomats and VIPS are commonly housed at the Inbal and King David hotels, which are both several dozen yards from the intersection.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is due to arrive in Jerusalem Tuesday evening for talks with Israel and Palestinian leaders, and was to be housed at the Inbal. It is unclear what effect the attack will have on his visit.

Liberty Bell park, which is heavily visited by the city's Jewish and Arab residents, and tourists is also across the street from the site of the attack, and Jerusalem's YMCA, a major landmark and cultural facility is nearby.

Police spokesmen say the terrorist copied a a similar attack three weeks ago near the entrance to Jerusalem, in which a Jerusalem Arab resident killed three motorists, and wounded 45.

A city Egged bus on the No. 13 line was rammed in both attacks.

No group has taken responsibility for the latest attack, and police believe the terrorist acted alone as in the previous attack.

The rampage joins a series of other terror attacks throughout the city over the past two months, aimed at it's Jewish residents.

This report will be updated as more details become available.

(Dave Bender)

Examining Kuntar Way Too Close For Comfort

Israel Channel 10 News: 'Kuntar in Lebanon; Samir Kuntar passes over to the Lebanese side [of the border].'

"A senior Israeli medic who took part in Samir Kuntar's capture after his 1979 terror attack in Nahariya, also took part in his medical and psychological profiling afterwards. The Birmingham, Alabama-born writer reveals shocking revelations about Kuntar's childhood, his treatment by the Israeli army, and his experiences guarding convicted terrorists:

"...please allow me to tell from first hand experience exactly who, "Their" brave hero really is. I met the brave 16.9 year old hate-filled, sexually abused, wild-eyed youth that murdered Dani Harran and his four year old toddler Einat that night April 22nd, 1979 on the beach in Nahariyah.

"I had gone to do my nightly volunteer shift with the Police as a member of the Civil Guard in the Meona Police station near Ma'alot.

During our shift it was a cool night and we could clearly hear the radio communications from Nahariyah. Around 11:30PM, myself and Shabbati Alon, the ex-commander of the Police in Meona who was now commander of the Civil Guard of Ma'alot, had gone to visit an Arab acquaintance to drink some strong Arabic coffee. Around 12:10AM we heard Eli Shachar Z"L answer the call for a robbery on Rechov Jabotinsky [Street] in Nahariyah. Suddenly there were frantic calls.

"Alon decided to go towards the scene to clarify what was going on as an experienced officer veteran of the 101 unit and an 18 year veteran of the Israeli police he felt that in those first moments his expertise as well as mine as a senior medic were needed, so we drove to the area. When we arrived on the scene, I witnessed first hand how Samir Kuntar viciously murdered Danny and then how he grabbed Einat by the arm and hair as he used the butt of his rifle to smash her little skull on the rocks.

"Once he had surrendered, sniveling after three of his comrades were killed, he was taken into custody along with his comrade Ahmed Al Abras. Al Abras would later be freed by Israel in the Jibril Agreement of May 1985.

"Standing near Kuntar I saw how from abject fear of retribution he defecated on himself, whimpered, cried and begged. We could have shot him but the officers said leave him alone, he surrendered. He was pitiful. Later, in order to hide his embarrassment, he claimed that since he had been shot he could not have murdered Danny or Einat. I never saw any wound on him.

"During my many years of IDF Reserves, I served as a EMT Master Sergeant of a Medical Unit that administrated medic care under Red Cross regulations, unarmed and dressed in Medical White coats. For me, my doctors and medics served honorably under the severest conditions of abuse and threats from our prisoners. We served according to the best tradition of the Hippocratic Oath and the motto of the medical corps, "To Save Life."

"In the routine pre-relief briefing while reviewing the cases of our prisoners who needed continual treatment, it was recorded in Kuntar's files that during the required pre-imprisonment psychological examination it was found that he had been a sexually abused and beaten child. He voluntarily admitted the information, without any force upon him, how his own father had sodomized him and how as a new young recruit he had repeatedly been sodomized by his friends in the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) camp of Rashadiyah, Lebanon, near Tyre before the terrorist attack in 1979. Furthermore, that as a young Lebanese Druse the Palestinians taunted him consistently as they questioned his loyalty to the cause.

"Later, while one of the doctors and I were administering treatment to Kuntar, he readily verified this information freely during treatment. His fair and conscientious medical care was in glaring contrast to how Israeli POWs are treated."

A must read: http://www.jerusalemdiaries.com/

My previous post on the transfer, with screen grabs from Israeli tv here.

'And I Saw Satan Laughing With Delight...'

Such a sad and bitter, bitter, day in Israel and the Jewish world. Such grief and agony for the families and friends of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. May they be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may God avenge the deaths of their sons.

Following are screenshots from TV coverage on Israel Channel 10 and 2. The backdrop is my wallpaper, a night shot I took of Tel Aviv. Click on the photos for full-sized images.


The tradeoff between Israel and Hizbullah begins.


Samir Kuntar arrives in Lebanon. (Read below to learn first-hand the monster that is Kuntar)

I have no words to express my feelings of revulsion and disgust at this travesty of elemental decent and humane behavior by a pack of turbaned creatures that give a wild animals a bad name.


Grieving friends and neighbor's outside of the Regev family apartment, near Haifa; cheering Lebanese welcome Kuntar as a "hero."


Hizbullah chieftan Hassan Nasrallah, Karnit Goldwasser, widow of Ehud.

Watching the coverage on Israel's Channel's 2 and 10, I felt transported to one scene during the war in the summer of 2006: I met and spoke with Eldad's father, Tzvi Regev, at their apartment in Kiryat Motzkin near Haifa. He was quiet, noble, but his grief was palpable. I ache for what he must be going through today.


Rolling out the red carpet for Kuntar in Beirut, as Hizbullah officials unload the soldier's coffins for transport to Israel. This moment was the first time in 24-months that any Israeli knew the status of their imprisonment.

There must be a proper closure for the families, resolution of the awful consequences of the war, as far as Hizbullah... and vengeance against them and their supporters; yes, accurate, timely and incisive vengeance for Israel against its enemies, in this debacle. There will be, I pray.

And soon, for all our sakes.


Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pay their last respects over the two coffins.


Tzvi Regev look on, as an IDF honor guard salutes the fallen soldiers after they are received in Israel.


Memorial candles lit in the entranceway to Tzvi Regev's apartment in Kiryat Motzkin, photos of Eldad and Ehud.


A Palestinian youth in Gaza hands out sweet pastries to passing vehicles, in celebration of Kuntar's release.


The coffins are loaded for transport to an IDF base after a forensics team and the families makes a positive identification of the remains.

Previous posts, 1st-person coverage of the 2006 War against Hizbullah including photos and video are here.

Flickr photos of the coverage are here.

Smadar Haran Kaieser is the mother of the four-year-old girl, Einat, that Kuntar brutally killed, and the wife of Danny, who Kantar also killed. She writes in the Washington Post:

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away.

Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe.

As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach.

There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

Google Earth: (virtually) 'Wiping Israel off the map'

From The Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs:

"Virtual Israel, as represented by Google Earth, is littered with orange dots, many of which claim to represent "Palestinian localities evacuated and destroyed after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war." Thus, Israel is depicted as a state born out of colonial conquest rather than the return of a people from exile. Each dot links to the "Palestine Remembered" site, where further information advancing this narrative can be obtained.

"Many of the claims staked out in Google Earth present misinformation, and sites known to be ruins in 1946 are claimed to be villages destroyed in 1948. Arab villages which still exist today are listed as sites of destruction. The Google Earth initiative is not only creating a virtual Palestine, it is creating a falsification of history."

Read the rest.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is, no doubt, chortling.

While this isn't a new story (I blogged about almost two years ago), it's an important one, and this well-footnoted report certainly backs up my contentions from then:

"So much of of what passes for "successful" efforts to combat anti-Israel reportage, propaganda, etc always seems to overlook "viral," bottom-up, grassroots activism, with [pro-Israel] proponents preferring top-down "dreiing with the machers," and, all too often coming out looking overwrought, and counterproductive.

"Along with ubiquitous online tools like Wikipedia, Google Earth is a great example of how skewed coverage of Israel begins, from a nominally neutral source, that is then picked up by the ill-informed as "fact," and then spread at the speed of "enter."

As I wrote in a related (satiric) post back then:

This Just In: Israel Dismantles; World's Problems End (UPDATE: Video)

Related posts are here, and here.

Gilad Shalit: A Bronx Story

From Ynetnews:

Students at P.S. 22 in the Bronx, NY, take turns reading aloud a story written by IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas gunmen from an outpost facing the Gaza Strip. The event was part of an initiative by Israel's NY Consulate to mark the second anniversary of his captivity.

Click on the image above to read a personal letter from Aviva and Noam, the parents of captive IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Click here to learn more about the events surrounding his abduction, and that of IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border.
Click here for downloadable versions of the story,
"When The Shark and the Fish First Met"

Jerusalem: ghosts of the Jaffa Gate

Night at the Jaffa Gate entrance to Jerusalem's Old City. (Dave Bender)

More (mostly) Israel photos are here.

'Israel As The Battered Woman'

(Graphic courtesy of Chabad)

I just came across this prescient article below, penned by American-born therapist Dr. Miriam Adahan, not long after the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the then nascent Palestinian Authority. Around the same period, I worked as a producer and program host at a "micro-broadcast" radio station in Jerusalem, called "RadioWest."

One evening as I was working the control board during the hourly newscast, Dr. Adahan was sitting in the studio alongside the news reader, waiting to begin her call-in show. As I watched the reader tersely recite a day's litany of terrorism and other mayhem, Adahan hid her eyes in her hands, and rocked back and forth in her seat as in grieved shock and mourning. How true her words ring today:

"In years to come, historians will be shocked at how Israeli leaders happily encouraged a gang of Arab murderers to create a country within our tiny borders -- a country which never existed before -- and gave them arms knowing that those arms could be used to kill and maim us, and then continued to try to appease the murderers. Why are we fulfilling Hitler's dream? Why did we ignore Arafat's rhetoric calling for our destruction, ignore the fact that they were flooding their cities with arms, and ignore the warnings that they are preparing for all-out war?"

(...)Want to understand what happened here in Israel? Listen to the battered woman:

1. "It takes two to make a fight. So I must deserve this abuse -- after all, I'm not perfect either. I left dishes in the sink, was talking on the phone when he came home and didn't have dinner ready on time. Sometimes, I was a little confused after he beat me up and didn't function so well. These sins of mine are so enormous that whatever he does is justified. I should have done better, should have known, should have anticipated...." (Israel: "As penance for not being perfect, we must allow them to continue murdering us.")

2. "If he's so angry, it means that I'm to blame. People don't get angry about nothing. It must be that I haven't done enough to please him. If I just try harder, I'm sure I'll eventually win his love." (Israel: "We must keep making more concessions. We're the more enlightened country, so we have to keep trying harder to get them to become more democratic, more humane, more civilized.")

3. "No matter how badly he acts at times, I truly believe that he doesn't really mean to hurt me and that he really does love me underneath it all. He just has to act like this to prove his masculinity. It doesn't really mean anything, because underneath it all, there's a good man." (Israel: "No matter how many of us he kills, Arafat is our partner. The fact that he keeps wanting to talk is proof of his love, isn't it? Otherwise, why would he take the time to talk to us?")

4. "I'm proud of myself for being loyal and determined! I stand by my man through thick and thin. You don't leave during the bad times. When you're willing to forgive after getting beaten up, that's when you prove how strong your love is." (Israel: "We take pride in the fact that we are the ones who care more about peace, and keep negotiating even when we're under attack. Hey world! Look at how much we're willing to suffer and not fight back! Now will you love the Jews?")

Read the rest, and weep.

Iranian prez shilling for Israeli cable TV !

Brilliant:



From Haaretz:

"My brothers," says the mock Iranian president in a speech broadcast through loudspeakers across the country, "the uranium is in our hands and after Monday it will be goodbye to Israel."

Unexpectedly, the Iranian leader's supporters - dressed in Shiite religious garb - take exception to the speech, dismayed at the prospect of missing their favorite Israeli television series.

"What are you talking about?" asks one of his followers. "It's the last episode of Danny Hollywood on Monday."

The declaration of Iranian president's intent to destroy Israel is met with riots and the police are deployed to control protests which suddenly take the form of a big budget musical.

The commercial, produced by advertising company McCann Erickson, is entirely a parody of "Kazablan," a hit Israeli musical of the 1960s:

From IMDB:

"An adaptation of a popular Israeli stage musical. Kazablan is an army veteran turned gang leader in the Israeli port of Jaffa who masks his feelings of bitterness with a lot of bravado."

'Never Again' vs 'Once More With Luck'

Israel at 60: two recent videos, with an abyss between them. Draw your own conclusions.



(Courtesy: Israel Channel 10 TV)


(Courtesy: www.InfoLive.tv)


Text of a proposed speech for an Israel prime minister.

A wealth of videos about Israel At 60 are here.

Israeli Hospital, under Palestinian Bombardment, Treats Palestinian Preemies

Dr. Maria Tzeitlin of BMCA examining one of the premature Palestinian babies (Photo: David Avioz, BMCA)

The bombardee would be Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, a few miles up the coast from the Gaza Strip. The same one Gaza Palestinians are blowing holes in with Iranian-made Grad/Katyusha rockets.

The same one that Palestinian premature twins are being kept alive in and cared for, while rockets hammer into the walls above, wounding patients and civilians.

This care isn't a hospital public relations department stunt, but rather a daily, telling occurrence throughout Israel. And a potent measure of the goodwill, health, and tempered resilience of Israeli society.

And I can personally vouch for it:

Both staff and patients at the Jerusalem hospital where my three children were born was made up of Israelis, Jews and Arabs (Palestinian Jerusalem ID card-holders, to the best of my knowledge).

Another family member was also successfully treated a few years ago by a similar staff makeup at the city's Hadassah Hospital, in their state-of-the-art pediatric cancer ward and outpatient clinic. Many of the patients I and family interacted with at the clinic during her course of treatment were Palestinians from Jerusalem, Ramallah and area villages.

On one day's chemotherapy session, I had my camera with me and recorded this:


Seventeen Native North American tribes, offering prayer and healing, visit with cancer-stricken Jewish, Christian and Muslim children and youth at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital pediatric cancer outpatient clinic. Here, a Muslim Arab mother of a cancer-stricken child speaks with a Native American woman, as Winnie the Pooh looks on. (Dave Bender).


And here, swirling dancers in tribal garb and a healing drum circle offer prayers for health, and bring sound, color and excitement to parents, kids and staff. (Dave Bender).

Are there tensions? Yes. Especially after terror attacks, as you might imagine. But all were helped by the best medical care in the region - possibly the world, and at Israeli taxpayer expense.

Lives were, and continue to be saved, and people healed. But Israelis aren't asking for applause here; this is about lifesaving and elemental human decency.

BMCA's neonatal intensive care unit, transferred to a bomb shelter (Photo: David Avioz, BMCA)

Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank - just like those twins - are treated, 24/7 in Israeli hospitals like Barzalai in Ashkelon, even when their elders try again and again, to kill those keeping them alive.

One of the Palestinian twins (Photo: David Avioz, BMCA)

Remember that the next time you read those headlines.

Read the rest here.

Video: Pals fire rockets, mortars, guns at Israeli news crew

(Israel Channel 2 Television/YouTube)

An Israeli TV news crew reporting from Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha near Gaza on Jan. 15 was attacked and pinned down by Palestinian snipers shooting from Gaza.

Interestingly enough, this hasn't been featured in the mainstream media - either in Israel or abroad.

Were this to have been a foreign news crew - or any news team for that matter - other than Israelis it would have made headlines worldwide, as similar stories have been reported in the past.

Hmmm. Odd, that. Can't quite figure out why. Journo and editor colleagues - any ideas why the underportage here? Could it be because they're Je-... nahhhh. Couldn't be, right?

I don't know the individuals in that crew, but I can imagine that they aren't making a lot out of it because of professional pride. But who knows what's being said at morning editorial meetings, and around the bar after hours.

But I have covered that area, and have been present at similar locations when we (reporters) were warned not to venture into the open, for fear if sniping attacks like this.

It is a damning indictment of the international media based in the area, and Israel provincialism not to scream to the high heavens over this, and demand Reporters Without Borders intervene, or at least issue a statement denouncing the attack - pallid and neutered as it may well be.

HT: Backspin