The Apology That Will Never Come

"We Have Love And It Will Win/Gush Katif and Samaria." (Photo: Dave Bender)

The sticker in the photo above was put out by opponents of Israel's Disengagement from the Gaza Strip and parts of Samaria in the summer of 2005. Jewish residents of the aforementioned areas tried to "market" their opposition to the traumatic national step not with anger and rancor, but via a message of faith, trust, hope and love. So much for that in a world ruled by money, guns and realpolitic.

By the way, go on and guess where and when I shot that photo. Go on, I'll wait...

It's the door of an shrapnel-riddled civilian apartment building in a poverty-stricken area of Israel's northern coastal city of Nahariya, just south of Lebanon.

The holes in the wall are from an exploded Katyusha rocket that Hizbullah fired at the town. A dozen feet away from the building is a synagogue that also sustained damage in the barrage - one of some 4,000 that hit the city in the summer of 2006.

I'm reminded of that photo by what Nadav Shragai, writing in Haaretz. He gives vent to what I, and I am certain many others, are feeling more and more deeply these last few weeks: 
Now, after the war and just before the election whirlwind sucks in our politicians once again, it would be appropriate for many of them to go out of their way and visit the mobile-home sites where those uprooted from Gush Katif live. This way they can tell them one small thing: I'm sorry.  

Tzipi Livni, Ehud Olmert, Shaul Mofaz and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israel Defense Forces and the police should do this - they, their agents and everyone else who initiated, implemented and aided in using force to uproot 10,000 people from their homes in Gush Katif and Northern Samaria, maliciously and without any real purpose.

Everyone who saw some good in the evil of the disengagement and evil in the good of Gush Katif has turned light into darkness and darkness into light. At the very least, they are obligated to make this small apology. 
Read the rest.

And I add my own mea culpa for placing my trust in all the military, academic and media "experts" I've interviewed over the years, leading up to and following the expulsion in the summer of '05 that confused black with white. Truth with lies, and honor, love, valor and elemental human decency, with squalid greed, fear and baseless hatred.

And you, dear reader?

JerusalemOnline: Weekly Video News Update

Today's Headlines:

Palestinian assassination plot against PM Olmert foiled Remnants of First Temple Period discovered by Temple Mount Recycled park built on remains of massive garbage dump

(Full disclosure: I worked at JerusalemOnline as an editor and translator)

Contrast & Compare: Jerusalem real estate, and not-so-real-estate

Building on Jerusalem (Dave Bender). I photographed this view of the Dome of the Rock, and construction near the Old City, via the reflection in the glass of the City Hall observation deck. Click the pic for the hi-rez version.

JPost:

Abbas wants state in 98% of West Bank:
Demands include all of Gaza, W. Bank, e. J'lem and areas in e. J'lem demilitarized before '67.

Infolive TV:

Real Estate Is Booming In The Capital:
Infolive.tv brings you the first in a series of special reports on Jerusalem, offering our readers the opportunity to learn about the different aspects of Israel's capital city, including security, the different peace plans concerning the city, real estate, religion and cultural events.

Click here for previous posts about Jerusalem.

(Disclosure: I served as an editor at The JPost, and bureau chief at Infolive: hah, loved the pun about "booming," Patricio, Margot...)

Jerusalem, Israel & Pals: splitsville?

Looking north towards central Jerusalem, from the capital's southernmost neighborhood, Gilo. I shot this photograph with a cellphone camera, and then tweaked it in Photoshop to get this somewhat dreamlike image. (Dave Bender)

Writer, columnist and blogger Judy Lash Balint weighs in with a well-crafted, detailed, and personal POV on the significance of reports about dividing Jerusalem:

When most tourists think of Jerusalem, they generally have in mind the Western Wall, the Israel Museum, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Ben Yehuda Mall and Yad Vashem. Sadly, tourists, like most Israeli Jews, don't spend much time in eastern Jerusalem--despite the fact that this part of the Holy City holds the most historical, spiritual and strategic significance for Jews and Christians.

But in the run-up to the Annapolis summit, as the Olmert and Bush administrations intone the old "two states for two peoples" mantra, and renewed declarations that a Palestinian state will have east Jerusalem as its capital go on, perhaps it's time to understand the dynamics of the eastern part of the city.

Until very recently, Israeli politicians both left and right cited "Jerusalem, the undivided capital of Israel" as the consensus mantra. Now, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, (the same Ramon who was convicted just six months ago on sexual harassment charges) is advancing the same unrealistic Camp David thinking on Jerusalem as that first raised by Ehud Barak in 2000. Let the Arabs have the Arab neighborhoods and the Jews will keep the Jewish areas, and the "Holy Basin" of Judaism and Christianity's holiest sites will be administered by joint international supervision, declares Ramon.

But, as anyone who has spent any time at all in Jerusalem's neighborhoods can attest, things on the ground are far more complex than that.

Read the rest and learn. Previous post featuring Balint.

(Full disclosure: Judy and I have worked together in the past on news coverage about Israel and PA areas)

Fatah prisoner release: signing a death warrant? (editorial cartoon)

From Haaretz:

"[Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert announced the plan on Monday at the close of a four-way summit with Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II, saying that Israel would only release prisoners not held for deaths of its citizens.

"As a gesture of goodwill toward the Palestinians, I will bring before the Israeli cabinet at its next meeting a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands, after they sign a commitment not to return to violence," Olmert said."

---

"This is a wrong, harmful message that will not strengthen the Palestinian Authority. It will only weaken it," Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in response to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to release Palestinian prisoners.

"[Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, also known as] Abu Mazen will be hurt by such a decision," continued Netanyahu. "Giving them guns and releasing their prisoners is a big mistake."

More on Bibi & Co. here.

Israeli-led team discovers new planet; Olmert, Peretz mull visit

Grease? It's just one of the most fitting words here.
Knesset member (Labor) Shelly Yechimovitch,
Defense Minister Amir Peretz

From The Jerusalem Post:

"Hizbullah has rebuilt itself and is prepared for another Israeli strike," Naim Kassem, the deputy secretary general of the Iranian-backed terror organization told Al Jazeera TV on Saturday.
"We have completed the groundwork necessary and we have new battle plans," Kassem added.

Meanwhile, in another dimension - "a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind," we have this:

"The person who will inherit the defense portfolio from me will receive a ministry in better condition than the one I headed," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said in a Channel 2 TV interview aired on Saturday.
Peretz was responding to the Winograd Committee's interim report, published on Monday, which put the most of the blame for the outcome of the Second Lebanon War on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Peretz and former IDF chief of general staff Lt. -Gen. [res.] Dan Halutz.

...Amir, motek, (sigh) ya' yutz, dafuk b'sechel, listen - "You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination."

Peretz, in a typical, telling
moment of military vision

But listen - if you hurry, there's still time for you and Ehudi to book a ticket:

An international team headed by a Tel Aviv University astronomer has discovered a new planet, HAT-P-2b, outside our solar system. The planet's "mother star" is some 400 light years from Earth.

More on this story here.

IDF troops returning from Lebanon,
after battles in Summer of 2006.

Remember, dear readers: A nation of heroes, a government of cowards.

150,000 tell Olmert, Peretz: Don't Let the Door Hit You in the Butt On the Way Out (Video)

Today's Headlines:

---

• Over 100,000 gather in Tel Aviv to demand Olmert, Peretz resign
• Foreign Minister Livni mulls quitting
• Rolling Stones and Britney Spears set to appear in Israel this summer
  
  
  
  Click on image for latest Israel
  Channel 2 tv news in English
  

Olmert's last gasp?

Click and read on...

Winograd Report

PM Olmert to Israel: Drop Dead - L'etat, C'est Moi!

"Feeling the 'Winograd' Noose"
(Photo: AP)

Ehud Olmert. Go home. You utterly failed and betrayed the people of Israel and the House of Israel in it's hour of need. Take Amir Peretz with you. We are a nation of heroes. You lead a government of craven cowards.
“Good evening. This afternoon I received the first part of the Winograd
Committee report (). The Government established the Committee seven months ago in order to examine the Second Lebanon War.

"I have studied the main points of the report. The report is grave and
harsh. There were achievements. There were failures by the main
decision-makers with myself at their head. Lessons must be drawn. Faults - and they are many - must be corrected. There is much to do. I intend to act in order to correct everything that needs correcting, thoroughly and
quickly."
Ehud Olmert. Go home. You utterly failed and betrayed the people of Israel and the House of Israel in it's hour of need. Take Amir Peretz with you. We are a nation of heroes. You lead a government of craven cowards.
"I intend to convene a special Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, 2.5.07.  I will propose that a team be appointed to quickly study the report and implement the necessary lessons.

"It would be incorrect to resign and I do not intend to do so.

"This Government made the decisions and this Government will correct the
faults."
Ehud Olmert. Go home. You utterly failed and betrayed the people of Israel and the House of Israel in its hour of need. Take Amir Peretz with you. We are a nation of heroes. You lead a government of craven cowards.
"From our point-of-view, the submission of the report does not close a
chapter in the war.  The submission of the report opens a new - and no less important - chapter, that of correcting the faults and learning the lessons.

"This evening, I am thinking about the bereaved families who lost loved ones in this just and unavoidable war.  I am thinking about the wounded and I am thinking about Udi, Eldad and Gilad Shalit.  Like all of Israel, I believe that it will be possible to bring them back home quickly."
Ehud Olmert. Go home. You utterly failed and betrayed the people of Israel and the House of Israel in its hour of need. Take Amir Peretz with you. We are a nation of heroes. You lead a government of craven cowards.

"Lastly, I would like to thank the Committee of Inquiry - its Chairman,
retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, and its members: Prof. Ruth Gavison, Prof.
Yehezkel Dror, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Menachem Einan and Dr. Chaim Nadel, for
their serious, thorough and dedicated work.”

Honor and thank them by leaving. Ehud Olmert. Go home. You utterly failed and betrayed the people of Israel and the House of Israel in its hour of need. Take Amir Peretz with you. We are a nation of heroes. You lead a government of craven cowards.

Pelosi's Syria junket: For an' agin' (updated with video)

Wow. When even The Washington Post sharply backhand's US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit with Syria's Assad, you can be sure there's a whole lotta' non-love goin' on there:

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria.

What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message.

Whoops. That's gotta' hurt. But not as much as this:

Pelosi promises to aid release of IDF captives

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday evening that she would not rest until the kidnapped Israeli soldiers return home.

During a speech she gave at the Knesset in the presence of the families of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, Gilad Shalit, Guy Hever and Zachary Baumel, Pelosi presented the soldiers' ID tags, which were given to her by their families.

More here.

Well, at least she's saying more than Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In the words of colleague Margot Dudkevitch:

"...in the ten days since the British sailors were taken into captivity, letters, film footage and declarations on camera by some of them, have been viewed for the entire world to see, daily.

Interest in our soldiers' welfare appears to have diminished. Not once in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's speech, that he granted to all the local networks and newspapers on the eve of Pessah, not once did he mention the soldiers."

Read the rest here.
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Whoever's talking, it's more important that you talk to the boss about this intolerable situation:

A prayer for the rescue of the captive and missing soldiers.

May it be your will, our God and God of our ancestors, that these Psalms that we have read, will find favor before You, as if King David, your servant, had recited them himself.

For the sake of Your Holy Name, may our prayer and request be accepted with mercy and favor, and may our supplication come before You, to show mercy and loving kindness for our captives and missing soldiers:

Ehud ben Malka Goldwasser
Eldad ben Tova Regev
Gilad ben Aviva Schalit
Guy ben Rina Hever
Zecharia Shlomo ben Miriam Baumel
Yekutiel Yehudah Nachman ban Sarah Katz
Zvi ben Pnina Feldman
Ron ben Batya Arad

Mercifully save them, together with all the captives and prisoners of your people Israel.

He who redeems prisoners shall save them from captivity and take them out of slavery to freedom, and fro oppression to redemption, and from darkness to light, and He shall heal them fully in soul and body, and grant them strength, happiness and joy, so they shall be strong, healthy and content.

May the merit and cries of prayer of the many, who beseech You on their behalf, from all corners of the earth, serve as a mighty shield and annul any evil decree, and may their merits and deeds for the sake of our people and homeland, be presented before You.

May the following verse be realized for them:

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

JerusalemOnline daily news update (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Merkel to Palestinians: Free Shalit
• Olmert urges peace talks with Arab leaders
• Katsav to be indicted on second rape count
• Winograd protocols decision postponed
• Special: click to watch US House Speaker Pelosi addresses Knesset

Israel: 'This Place Called Hope' (insert sigh here)

Dry Bones, once again, nails it

Daniel Gordon, in pondering the hellish moods, exposes' and general crap writhing through Israeli society over the aftermath of investigations into the government and IDF's conduct of the war against Hizbullah; a slew of investigations of the (take a deep breath and try not to spew...) Government, Justice Minister, Knesset parliament, Tax Authority, both chief rabbis, and now, presidency in Israel's (modern) history, quoting an IDF general he recently interviewed, writes,

“'In any normal country, people would be in the streets, burning tires, protesting by the thousands. But here, nothing happens. People are going on as if there’s nothing to get worked up about.'”

I’m not so sure that it’s terrible that people aren’t burning tires. Burning tires would suggest that a change in the government would be enough. But that would be delusional. The reason Israelis aren’t protesting, I think, is that deep down, they understand that this problem is much deeper than the government, or the corruption, or the war. It’s Zionism. No one frames it that way, but that’s the real issue. One hundred and ten years after the First Zionist Congress, people are beginning to wonder if Zionism hasn’t begun to fail.

Very worthwhile reading about the malaise engulfing Israel.

(H-T: The Muqata)

'Carnival of Vanities' 102 hot off the presses...

HOTDAWGS! BEERHEAH! SOOVINEERES! PRO-GRAMZ! PRETZELS! HAVEILHAVALIM! Get em' while they're hot!