On the one hand it’s obvious the young man has just made my life easier by putting on the sticker for Jews. On the other hand, it’s one of the things that it’s hard to say thanks for. I mean, thank you for not considering me a terrorist any more? — Actress Mira Awad’s tale of Israeli airport security.

Actress Mira Awad (Urga41/CC)

Palestinian Christian singer Mira Awad, a celebrity in Israel who has participated in the Eurovision, the Israeli version of “Dancing with the Stars” and is also known for her role in Sayed Kashua’s television sitcom “Arab Labor,” posted the following status on her Facebook page today:

Israeli media reports that Jewish settlers are complaining the tear gas from the weekly Friday demos across the West Bank is ruining their Sabbaths. +972 is revealing today that in fact this is a result of a new Palestinian strategy to be shot at during not only Fridays, but ahead of every holiday on the Jewish calendar.

An Israeli soldier shoots tear gas into a crowd of Palestinian protesters in Hebron. March 31, 2013 (Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

As reported this week, settlers in the West Bank are complaining that tear gas fired at Palestinians during weekly unarmed protests gets carried by the wind to their settlements and creates major discomfort for them on Fridays.

But +972 has found out that this is only the tip of the iceberg. According to anonymous sources, Palestinians are planning to demonstrate on the eve of every Jewish holiday, besides Erev Shabbat, to make the chag as unbearable as they can.

27-year-old “M”, from Nabi Saleh, told +972: “We are interested in making the settlers suffer as much as possible, so we have decided to meet the army head-on every, how you call it – Erev Chag? Inshallah the army will pound us with as much gas as possible. I hope I nearly suffocate.”

When asked what would happen if the gas would drift into his village and not the nearby settlement, M responded: “It’s a chance we’re willing to take. If this Shavuot we manage to make one cheese cake bring tears to a family’s eyes – our job is done.”

“A”, 34, from Bilin: “We will demonstrate this Shavuot, and Tisha B’av and Rosh Hashana! I will go straight up to the IDF jeeps and risk a rubber bullet if it means a settler may whiff some tear gas! I am willing to risk my life so that next Channukah the settlers will cry over every latke they fry.”

Settlers are already reacting to the news, asking the IDF to respond appropriately. “We demand the IDF cease shooting tear gas canisters at high arcs, since the gas floats much more easily that way in our direction,” said Yehuda Cohen from Halamish. “If the IDF...

Every once in a while I get a comment on one of my posts along the lines of: ‘Why don’t you do anything about Syria, huh? If you’re such a human rights activist, why don’t you care about places where people are suffering much more right in your neighborhood? Huh??’ or ‘You know, the Arabs have it much better in Israel than anywhere else! They should count their blessings!’ 

And it makes me wonder…

Settlers throw stones at Palestinians as IDF soldiers stand by in the West Bank village of Asira al Qibliya. April 30, 2013 (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Ring, ring! Ring, ring!

Operator: Atrocities Unlimited, how can I help you?

Palestine: Hello, my name is Palestine.

Operator: Hello Mr. Palestine, what can I do for you?

Palestine: Yes, well, I understand you end atrocities and human rights violations.

Operator: That’s very true. Are you suffering from an atrocity or human rights violation, sir?

Palestine: Yes, I am. I have been under occupation for 46 years.

Operator: Occupation?

Palestine: Yes, occupation.

Operator: Sir, you do understand that we assist on a Worst Come, First Serve basis?

Palestine: Excuse me?

Operator: A Worst Come, First Serve basis.

Palestine: What does that mean?

Operator: It means we deal with the worst atrocity first. You are not the worst atrocity, sir.

Palestine: I didn’t say I was, but… but… I am suffering.

Operator: I’m sure you’re suffering but there are others out there who need our help before you, sir.

Palestine: But…

Operator: …and until then you just have to sit quiet and wait your turn. Will that be it, sir?

Palestine: But wait! OK, OK… so, tell me where I am in line… can you do that?

Operator: 31.

Palestine: 31?!?!? There are 31 peoples before me?

Operator: Yes, sir.

Palestine: But, what does that mean? How long do I have to wait?

Operator:...

This McDonald’s commercial, for a new range of burgers named after American cities, has a one-liner from a fake President Obama that somehow, surprisingly, hits the nail on the head.

Now, of course I’m not saying that America exists thanks to Israel. But there’s something about the reversal of roles that rings true in an era where the Israeli prime minister feels he can intervene in an American election, or easily push aside new diplomacy efforts by an incoming secretary of state.

For the past few years, I’ve been debating within my head the whole standing during the sirens issue. Both on Holocaust Memorial Day, and today for fallen soldiers.

Something about the rituals on both days bother me, and at times it gives me the creeps in a “big brother” kind of way. The way a state can make so many citizens stand still for two minutes seems like a bit too much control for my liking. I guess that’s one of the reasons (among many) I decided to attend the alternative Combatants for Peace Memorial Day ceremony last night.

Yet, despite all this, I always stand. I’ve decided that no matter what, I will stand for a high school friend, Tomer Guterman.

Tomer and I were never really close. He was a close friend of some close friends. As such, we still met quite often, even after high school as we all began going our separate ways.

Tomer’s way was in the air force. He was a combat chopper pilot. He died in a routine training flight on March 3, 2003. He was 30, married, and never saw the little girl growing in his wife’s belly. Naama used the letters of Tomer’s name when naming their daughter, and called her Rotem.

I remember Tomer as a funny guy. Someone who smiled a lot. Someone extremely opinionated (who would probably hate +972 with a passion). Someone who was witty. And great at soccer. Someone I just honestly liked to be around.

So, I’m putting all my politics aside. I stand for Tomer. May he rest in peace.

Stand With Us poster juxtaposing Holocaust survivors with IDF soldiers

How does one give therapy to a whole nation? This is the question I asked myself after seeing this photo montage made by the pro-Israel group Stand With Us, celebrating that Israel is now the largest center of Jews in the world. (UPDATE: Stand With Us took the picture off their Facebook wall)

That’s the only way I can explain a photo like this. The Jewish nation goes through one of the most traumatic events in history, and the result is some sort of disorder, a PTSD on national levels. How does one treat that?

How does one convince a people that yes, what you’ve been through was horrific on levels so hard to grasp – but you can not be a victim forever? I’m saddened to think about the prospects for reconciliation with our neighbors, if this level of victimhood is what dictates our thoughts every second. When something like this is ingrained so deeply in the national psyche, what are the hopes in the near future for freeing ourselves from it?

It’s always the little things, like a stupid photo montage, that really bring it home to me, that really fill me with despair.

Yet, besides saddening me this photo also angers me. It angers me how someone can cynically use a picture of concentration camp inmates for their own purposes. Especially when it turned out that Israel was probably the worst place a Holocaust survivor could have chosen to live in. Of all places, Israel let the survivors in its midst die in utter poverty. Israel never forgot the Holocaust, but certainly forgot its survivors.

New Labor MK Merav Michaeli wrote in an op-ed in Haaretz over a year ago on how the Holocaust is remembered in Israel. She wrote it after a poll was published that said 98 percent of Israelis consider it “either fairly important or very important to remember the Holocaust, attributing to it even more weight than to living in Israel, the Sabbath, the Passover seder and the feeling of belonging to the Jewish people.” Here is an excerpt:

‘New York Times’ reporter and columnist Anthony Lewis died today at the age of 85. Although we never met, he changed my life. Well, that may be an exaggeration, but still…

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a long blog post. I just have no patience for them. So, bearing that in mind, I’ll totally understand if you skip this one.

New York Times reporter and columnist Anthony Lewis died today, at the age of 85. I didn’t know his writings very well. The only few op-eds I did read were all Israel/Palestine related.

Despite this very superficial “relationship” with Lewis, I somehow feel like he affected my life, and in some way my views.

In his honor, I’m re-posting this post I wrote on my personal blog 3.5 years ago, before +972 Magazine was born. It’s a post that tells about my first “contact” with Lewis 20 years earlier, and how it put things into perspective for me back then. This time around, it even does it once again for me.

———————————–

As the debate over the Goldstone report heats up, I am reminded of a story that happened over 20 years ago, when I was just a lad of 15 years of age.

This story tells of five Palestinians killed, one op-ed written, one letter-to-the-editor sent, one pundit’s response, and what’s changed since then.

On the 14th of April, 1989, deep into the first Intifada, a unit of border policemen entered the village of Nahhalin in search of “suspects.” The unit was surprised by hundreds of Palestinian youth, who were waiting for them with stones in hand. Needless to say, the unit never got to the arrests “stage,” but it did “manage” to kill five and wound 12 more.

I was 15 back then and just came back to Israel after a year in upstate New York, on sabbatical with my parents at SUNY in Binghamton. The Intifada had just started while we were in the States, and as a young teenager I couldn’t help but be extremely overwhelmed at how bad Israel was being portrayed in the media.

The events a year later in Nahhalin triggered a lot of worldwide coverage. One person who took part was longtime New York Times pundit, Anthony Lewis....

Netanyahu and Obama (flickr / Mark Israel, The Israel Project)

The speech Barack Obama gave this evening in Jerusalem was supposed to be the pinnacle of his visit. But actually, things worked out a bit differently. The most important comments the president made were just a few hours before the Jerusalem speech, while he was still in Ramallah talking with Palestinian officials.

Everyone was wondering just how much tough love the president was going to show his friend, Israel, during his Jerusalem speech. And indeed, there were a few moments. Condemning settlement violence was a first, for example. And although his criticizing the settlements and the occupation on the whole was crystal clear, it didn’t really pack any serious punch beyond that.

What did, though, was a comment he made in front of occupied Palestinians:

Powerful words. Maybe even a watershed moment. An African-American president comes to Ramallah and invokes the civil rights movement in the U.S. Without saying it specifically, he compares the situation of Palestinians under 45 years of occupation to blacks who suffered from racial discrimination. And he uses his own daughters in the process, making it personal. Showing his understanding.

That was his moment. A moment that unfortunately doesn’t seem to be taken seriously by either local or international media.

Now we have to see, after he leaves, what Obama will do with this recognition. Just because he may believe Palestinians are discriminated against, doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything about it. Or can do anything about it. Will he and new Secretary of State John Kerry begin a good cop-bad cop routine? Push for new “talks”? Another “process”?

Or will he let the Israelis and Palestinians figure it out for themselves? Seeing as how American diplomacy has so far failed to reap any successes for decades, he might be tempted to once again avoid this region as he did in his first term. Frankly, this just might be the wiser decision.

Oh, and the settlements are in very, very good hands.

Binyamin Netanyahu and Yair Lapid (Photo: IsraeliinUSA/CC BY 2.0, Activestills.org)

One of Israel’s leading sociologists, the late Baruch Kimmerling, is responsible for coining the term “Ahusalim (אחוס”לים),” to describe those who ruled Israel for decades. It is an acronym in Hebrew for “Ashkenazi, secular, old guard, socialists, and nationalists.” ASOSNs, for us English speakers. I guess Kimmerling was trying to find something similar to WASP, and although he came up with a term that became widely used, let’s face it – phonetically it’s a flop.

As I write these lines, the coalition agreements between the Likud, Jewish Home and Yesh Atid are being signed, and it appears we need a new acronym. I am suggesting the Hebrew term “Achdakglalim (אחדקגל”לים),” (or NARSYCWhiGs for us English speakers) for two reasons:

1) It’s much more relevant and inclusive. Now, it means “Nationalist, Ashkenazi, Religious, Secular, Young, Capitalist, White, Guys.

2) It also has the word “glalim” in it, which means “animal droppings,” and I find this funny.

I plan on giving this new government a chance before critiquing it too much, but it must be said that its current delegation of portfolios does not bode well.

With Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and new Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon, backed by other staunch right-wing settlers in ministerial and key committee positions, this is another extremely nationalist government. Tzipi Livni, in charge of negotiations with Palestinians, and Yesh Atid, who claim to want a renewal of negotiations, will most probably be fig leaves for a process that has died long ago.

Settlements will continue to have massive funding, with Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) as Minister of Housing, and another representative of his party heading the all important finance committee.

On the financial front, neither Yesh Atid nor Jewish Home represent anything that the social protests stood for. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yair Lapid especially, who beat Likud in the posh towns of Savyon and Herzliya Pituach (the Beverly Hills of Israel), is most likely not going to fight the 1 percent too valiantly in his new position as finance minister.

And finally, we have the groups who will continue to be under-represented once again. The Mizrahim...

Palestinian workers holding an Israeli work permit wait in line to board an Israeli bus designated for Palestinians only after the Eyal checkpoint, near the West Bank city of Qalqiliya, March 4, 2012. (Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org)

The word “apartheid” is slowly seeping more and more into mainstream discourse on the occupation. Yet I recently came across two cases in which, how to say, the usage of the word was a bit surprising.

The first came in the official Yesha Council newsletter, which posted an item on the Palestinian-only buses recently “inaugurated” for Palestinian workers who enter Israel on a daily basis. You can read more about these bus lines here.

Besides pointing to Chaim Levinson’s (Haaretz) piece claiming Palestinians are happy with the new arrangement, the Yesha Council – who went with the headline “Apartheid, nice to meet you” – goes even further:

Another attempt to spin things around was seen on Facebook, where a settler named Chani Luz, who works for a right-wing NGO called Tadmeet (aimed at calling out left-wing tendencies in Israeli media) said the following in response to the signs across the territories warning Israelis from entering Area A:

A sign forbidding Israeli Jews from entering Area A in the West Bank, which is under PA control. (photo: Tadmeet) 

I was never a big fan of Merav Michaeli during her showbiz career. But I have to admit: over the past two years, since her writing in Haaretz and political career began – I’ve been hooked.

Now, as a newly elected Labor MK, she has the chance to live up to the high expectations many have of her. Yair Lapid, who promised his voters “new politics” but instead gave them cooperation with Naftali Bennett’s right-wing Jewish Home party, could learn a bit about the real change that is needed in this place from Michaeli’s inaugural speech in the Knesset last week.

As opposed to 2009, and with a somewhat reality show kind of feel, the post-election inaugural speeches by the new MKs have been all over social media – as if we’re being presented with the new contestants of this season.

For me, out of all these speeches, Michaeli’s stood out clearly. She addresses in 10 minutes some of the major ills of Israeli society (the “victim” syndrome, the security budget, exclusion of women and more), and also manages to mock the “sharing the burden” farce that Lapid has put at the top of his political agenda.

I’m not a Labor supporter, but if Michaeli proves to be as good a lawmaker as she is a speaker and writer, and if she happens to change her sick, old and irrelevant party from within – I’ll be one happy camper.

And, the Oscar for weirdest item of the day goes to… the group of soldiers who call for charging the makers of ’5 Broken Cameras’ with incitement!

The Israeli website Mako reports that the group, known as “Consensus – Guardian of the IDF Spirit,” has posted the following Youtube clip as part of a campaign against the makers of the movie (my subtitles).

Mako reports:

I wonder if they’ll sue the Academy for enabling this “crime.”