'Home Game:' When Israeli hoop dreams lost to Gaza pullout (Podcast, video)

I just posted the audio podcast of this report:

While media coverage of Israel’s evacuation of 9,000 Jewish residents from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005 focused on the political and physical struggle between the government and its citizens, filmmakers Yaron Shane and producer Avi Abelow chose to focus on the human aspect.

The massive police operation which garnered the world's attention and brought emotions to a fevered pitch within the country, played out on very same day as the final game of the annual high-school basketball championship between the 22 Jewish communities in Gaza.

That's the backdrop for Home Game, their recently-released film.

A movingly edited amalgam of hundreds of amateur film clips, recorded by the residents themselves, along with one-on-one interviews with residents Home Game chronicles daily life before and during the evacuation of the 30-year-old farming community of Netzer Hazani, in the southern Gush Katif settlement bloc. Shane and Abelow carefully pieced together the myriad personal and public dramas taking place both within, and beyond the echoing walls of the sports hall into a dramatic whole.

"My ultimate goal is for people to put aside their political orientations, and religious affiliations and whatever baggage they have that stops them from feeling empathy for their fellow Jews who go through tragedies; and in this case, with the movie dealing with the people and the families and the youth of Gush Katif, who went through an unbelievable tragedy,” Abelow told www.ISRAEL21c.com at a screening of the film in Tel Aviv.

Here's a bit of background:



Gaza Pullout: Settlers & Supporters Protest on Vimeo

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

A full version of this article, and the podcast is cross-posted at Israel21c.

Charlie Brown: A Jihad Christmas (Video)

O-kaaaaaay. This is clever. Wicked, but clever. And I am so waiting for the Hanukkah version, so Jews, Israelis and supporters can have a hoot during a darkening winter.

To the new visitor here: There are other, much, much nastier versions of this sort of parody out there, but this one is slamming Jihad and suicide bombers (and Tom Cruise) - not Islam, Get it?



And - just to show the uberPC dweeb visitor here that we're fair, here's how we like our satire about Jews and holidays.

JerusalemOnline news update: Oct. 22nd (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Health Ministry probes flu injection deaths
• Coalition passes bill for presidential system
• Israel Beiteinu Party set to join coalition
• IDF planning Gaza foray
  

Click here or on image for latest Israel
Channel 2 TV news update.

Why did God create atheists?

And, in an effort to balance out the previous posting, Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks writes in The London Sunday Times:

“DO YOU believe,” the disciple asked the rabbi, “that God created everything for a purpose?”

“I do,” replied the rabbi.

“Well,” asked the disciple, “why did God create atheists?”

The rabbi paused before giving an answer, and when he spoke his voice was soft and intense. “Sometimes we who believe, believe too much. We see the cruelty, the suffering, the injustice in the world and we say: ‘This is the will of God.’ We accept what we should not accept. That is when God sends us atheists to remind us that what passes for religion is not always religion. Sometimes what we accept in the name of God is what we should be fighting against in the name of God.”

Read the rest.

Tales of 'Near-Death Experiences' in Israel

Erica Chernofsky at The Jerusalem Post takes an interesting look - and takes the time to write a long-format article (not sure if it's also as long in the print version) - on the subject of "Near Death-Experiences."

From Wikipedia:

A 'core' near-death experience reflects — as intensity increases according to the Rasch scale — peace, joy and harmony, followed by insight and mystical or religious experiences (Lange, Greyson & Houran, 2004). The most intense NDEs involve an awareness of things occurring in a different place or time. Among the clinical circumstances that are thought to lead to an NDE we find such factors as: cardiac arrest, shock in postpartum loss of blood or in perioperative complications, septic or anaphylactic shock, electrocution, coma, intracerebral haemorrhage or cerebral infarction, attempted suicide, near-drowning or asphyxia, apnoea, serious depression (van Lommel et al., 2001).

Worth a read.

Here's a compelling YouTube entry about the subject:

HezBow-Flex! For a Firmer, Tighter Katyusha

Flat Fatima is Back!

From The Jerusalem Post:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has responded positively to Lebanese Amal head Nabih Berri's peace-talk overtures, calling the Lebanese Shi'ite leaders words "interesting."

"Anytime an Arab leader says he wants to talk peace, we have to listen," Olmert told reporters.

From Ynet News:

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Lebanese authorities on Thursday to take a lesson from the recent war between Israel and Hizbullah and quickly agree on a plan for disarming Hizbullah.

Refrigerator magnets of the gods: Now available on this site

Mideast mayhem got you down?

Bored stiff waiting for that special email to arrive? Did'ya get stood up when your IM chat partner wrote "brb" (be right back) - but wasn't?

Hey, no worries, we got you covered, bunky!

Look over there at the top, left side of this page - just beneath the "profile." That's right, go ahead and scroll - I'll wait...

Right. They're refrigerator magnets. Moveable by you, along with hundreds (...ok, five or six) of others in real-time.

Just click the mouse cursor on a letter, hold it, and drag it around. Until somone else does... Make nice.

Go. You know you want to...

Free Palestine! (While stocks last)

From Ynet News:

An Israeli was moderately injured early Thursday morning in a shooting attack near the Fadouel settlement in the West Bank.

The man said terrorists opened fire on him as he drove his car on t he road leading to the settlement. The Israel Defense Forces searched the area in an attempt to locate the perpetrators.

From Haaretz:

In an interview with Haaretz published Thursday, senior cabinet minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) said that Israel should hold permanent peace negotiations with Arab states based on the Saudi initiative.

Sheetrit also said that Israel should agree to negotiate over the Golan Heights if Syria halts its support of terrorism.

From The Jerusalem Post:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz secretly met Tuesday with veteran settlement leader Ze'ev [Zambish] Hever Wednesday night, according to a Channel 2 report.

The two reportedly discussed a plan in which a number of illegal West Bank outposts would be voluntarily evacuated by settlers, while around 10 others would be given legal status as permanent settlements.

JerusalemOnline news update: Oct. 19th (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Peres makes 2nd bid for presidency
  
• Katsav hints at inside info on sex charges
  
• Business: Sudden CEO change at drug giant Teva
  
  
  
  Click here or on image for latest
  Israel Channel 2 news update
  

  
  
  (Cross-posted at Israelity)
  

'My Name is also Rachel' (a terror-ISM reminder)

Keshertalk, offering a timely reminder that Rachel Corrie wasn't the only young Rachel killed in the conflict notes:

The original US producer of the new off-Broadway run of the London hit "My Name is Rachel Corrie" wanted to "contextualize" the play by providing for structured discussion...

If you did not know that Corrie protected smuggling tunnels, or that her organization the ISM has openly praised and abetted suicide bombers, or that suicide bombers existed, or that the bulldozer driver couldn't see her from where he was sitting, you would never find it out from this study guide.

Eight Israelis named Rachel, along with 950 others, including Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, tourists, guest workers and others were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 2003, the year Corrie was killed.

As Haifa University professor and blogger Steven Plaut acerbically points out:

Corrie died as a result of her own stupidity. She was in Gaza to help promote Palestinian terrorism and to prevent Israel from protecting its own citizens. She died protecting the illegal tunnels into Gaza from Egypt, through which the suicide bombers obtained their materials. The most lasting images of Corrie was of her face contorted with rage and as she burned an American flag. When Reuters reported that Palestinians "honored" her after her death in a "symbolic funeral" by flying U.S. flags, James Taranto from the Wall Street Journal remarked that if Corrie were still alive, no doubt she'd have burned the flags.

Even the far-Left Mother Jones magazine considers her a dangerous and deluded little twit. The Israeli army investigated the death and concluded that Corrie had effectively committed suicide. Taranto also suggested that Corrie be awarded the "Idiotarian of the Year Award" for playing chicken with a huge earth-mover.

The ISM is not simply an innocent, if evil, fringe debating society. Within Israeli territories, its members have actively collaborated with terrorists. They hid weapons and wanted terrorists in their offices. The local ISM offices hosted two Moslem suicide bombers from the UK, who had entered Israel as "peace activists," only to blow a Tel Aviv bar to smithereens the next day.