By Matan Kaminer

MK Nitzan Horowitz. Horowitz recently announced his candidacy for mayor of Tel Aviv. (Jstreet CC BY NC SA 2.0)

Although municipal political party Ir LeKulanu is not considered “left” in Israeli terms, it embodies one of the greatest successes of the non-Zionist left in Israeli history. In national elections, the non-Zionist or “radical” left keeps slamming into the brick wall of privileges enjoyed by Israel’s Jewish citizens, including not only Mizrahi, Ethiopian and Russian citizens (whose Jewishness is the only thing separating them from the socio-economic abyss), but also the “liberal” Ashkenazi middle class.

However, the municipal arena is a bit different. Since most decisions pertaining to the state’s Jewish and colonial character are not made at the municipal level, it is possible to envision an alliance between victims of urban capitalism in the face of disagreement over so-called “national-political” issues. Under the aegis of Ir LeKulanu (“City for All”), radical activists whose opposition to Zionism is well known have been able to join forces not only with young middle-class people from the city center but also with an active, vocal group of south Tel Aviv residents. (At the same time, the movement has been only partially successful in connecting to the Palestinian residents of Jaffa, whose “Yafa” party ran separately but supported Ir LeKulanu mayoral candidate Dov Khenin.)

Five years have since passed over Tel Aviv-Jaffa, bringing with them two wars on Gaza, one Arab Spring and one wave of social protest which momentarily shook Israeli society. The party’s many members who expected it to develop into a full-fledged popular movement were disappointed. But Ir LeKulanu’s very survival under the bitter attacks it faced from the municipal opposition is not to be taken for granted – and most of the credit for this perseverance goes to the movement’s indefatigable council members.

About two weeks ago, Khenin announced that he would not be running for mayor again, opening a debate on the desirability of running a candidate from the party, especially in the wake of Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz announcing his candidacy. Some say that all oppositional forces must be united for the overarching goal of defeating incumbent mayor Ron Huldai. But insufferable as he may be, Huldai is only the representative of an urban alliance which is bigger than him. The two wings of this alliance are the affluent, mostly Ashkenazi residents of the northern neighborhoods who enjoy the fruits of Huldai’s reign, and the capitalists reaping profits from the transformation of the city center from a living residential area into a glitzy playground of real estate speculation.

Horowitz is far from challenging this alliance. In a mass e-mail he sent out to declare his candidacy, Jaffa is never mentioned, and the city’s south is barely paid lip service. Praise for former mayors, on the other hand, is abundant, with especially warm words for the incumbent, under whom Horowitz’s party has served loyally for four of the current administration’s five years. Whether or not it is efficacious for him, this tactic sends a clear signal to the oppressed groups in the city – Palestinians, refugees and migrants and Mizrahi residents of the south – that Horowitz is signalling his utter indifference to them.

This is the time for Ir LeKulanu to hoist another flag, differentiating itself from both Huldai and his little brother Horowitz. It is going to be a turbulent summer, with great turmoil over the austerity measures about to be unleashed by the government. Now is the time to catalyze urban energies around an alternative pole. In a sense, Khenin’s decision is advantageous, as it enables Ir LeKulanu to make a clear statement by choosing a Mizrahi from the city’s south to be its candidate for mayor. Such a choice would not be forced or artificial, since the movement has included a lively contingent of south Tel Aviv activists from its inception. Among these are two of the movement’s most outstanding city council members, Yael Ben-Yefet and Aharon Maduel, as well as many others. Yet candidacy is not just a matter of personal excellence, but of what the candidate symbolizes. Running a candidate will be a clear sign to the residents of the south that they are a central priority for the movement, and that their presence within it is desired.

The Mizrahi Jewish community is Israel’s largest ethnic group. Its historic links to the culture of the Middle East and its class position make it a critical component in any revolutionary coalition imaginable in Israel. When even far more privileged groups are unwilling to reject Zionist identifications at the national level, it is neither fair nor realistic to expect Mizrahis to be the first to do so. But for this very reason, at this critical junction, the radical leftists who form an important component of Ir LeKulanu should not pass up the opportunity to throw their weight behind a Mizrahi urban leadership in coalition with Palestinians, Ashkenazis, refugees and migrants. The way to do so is clear: to fight with determination in support of a south Tel Aviv candidate for mayor.

Matan Kaminer is active in Ir LeKulanu. This article was first published in Hebrew on Haokets. Haokets is a non-profit, independent, progressive Israeli web magazine that hosts critical discussion where hundreds of writers publish professional and original pieces on socioeconomic, cultural and philosophical issues, human rights activism, feminism, and Mizrahi politics. Visit their English-language blog.

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Tel Aviv Municipality officials showing an asylum seeker out of his resturant (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

A group of municipal officials led an operation to close African asylum seekers’ illegal businesses in the south Tel Aviv neighborhoods of Neve Sha’anan and Shapira at around 7 p.m. Sunday night. The municipal officers were accompanied by Border Police officers, a photographer and several large moving trucks complete with African workers.

Splitting into groups, the law enforcers went to several bars, restaurants and grocery stores owned by asylum seekers. As their legal status in Israel forbids them from either working or owning a business, most Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers are forced to make a living illegally, which leads authorities to chase them down and either punish their employers or close down their shops.

A policeman and an attack dog watch over African workers emptying an asylum seeker’s store (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Such was the case Sunday evening. All the goods, furniture and other equipment in all the businesses were inventoried and confiscated, and the doors were welded shut. In none of the locations photographer Oren Ziv and I visited was there any resistance by the shop owners and the armed policemen (and one police attack dog) were left without much to do. Several Israeli bystanders cheered the officials for helping pushing foreigners out, while other muttered insults at them for enforcing racist policies.

Workers emptying a bar in south Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Estimates have it that asylum seekers are running hundreds of small businesses in south Tel Aviv, mostly serving their own communities and naturally, authorities cannot possibly close them all down. However, owners often complain about police brutality, as Border Police patrols force people out of bars at midnight, at times using batons and even pepper spray. The municipality, too, is working hard at combating this small world of business and leisure, but operations on today’s scale are not a common sight.

Welding a shop’s door shut (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

It is possible that Mayor Ron Huldai’s administration pushed the operation forward as part of preparations for the upcoming October municipal elections. Many Israeli residents of south Tel Aviv are likely to be supportive of such actions, as the feeling is that asylum seekers are burdening the already weak physical and social infrastructure and poor services provided to the mostly working or lower-middle class population in the neighborhoods. This feeling is strengthened as some asylum seekers are pushed into criminal activities and the press gives extensive coverage to the criminality. Tensions between the communities has already led to several individual and mob attacks on asylum seekers by Israelis.

Municipal officials and private movers take a fridge out of an asylum seeker’s resturant (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

UPDATE, May 13, 10:30 a.m.:

Aladin Abaker, a Sudanese refugee, published pictures from Sunday night’s raid showing municipal Ministry of Health inspectors pouring bleach into pots of food in a restaurant, allegedly because the establishment is “a danger to public health.” He writes the following:

Friends meet in this place, the most delicious restaurant with a smell of home, to eat and remember our families in Darfur. Suddenly health inspectors and police forces swarmed in and destroyed the food we had ordered and the food in the pots, with no sensitivity to the people whose culture sees food as a sacred thing to be treated with respect. We tried to tell them that this place has been open for four years now, it’s where we eat all our meals, and not once has anyone gone ill. Even whites come to eat here…

Everybody present was in tears. The waitress told us: “I’ve seen some horrible things in my life, including torture in Sinai, but this has humiliated me more than torture.” I told her they were doing it to make our lives miserable and try to encourage us to return to Africa “willingly.”

Offical pouring bleach into food as Sudanese restaurant (Photo: Aladin Abaker)

Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) on Monday announced his intention to run in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal elections, due to take place on October 22. Horowitz, a second-term MK and former journalist for Channel 10 News, will be challenging former Labor member Ron Huldai, who has served as Tel Aviv’s mayor since 1998. If he wins, Horowitz (49) would be Tel Aviv’s first openly gay mayor, and the first in any Israeli city.

MK Nitzan Horowitz (photo: Moshe Shai / CC-BY 3.0)

In a press conference at the old city hall building on Monday, Horowitz mentioned rising real-estate prices – which sparked the social protest movement in 2011 – along with the city’s infamous transportation problems among his reasons for running. He also promised to introduce a new plan for the city’s southern neighbourhoods, which have almost doubled their population due to the waves of asylum seekers who were sent there by the government.

If elected, Horowitz said he will resign from the Knesset.

Mayor Huldai is still considered a favorite in the race. Internal polls give him around 50 percent of the vote, and only a third to Horowitz. However, the surprising achievement of Hadash’s Dov Khenin, who received over a third of the votes in 2008 despite coming from the margins of the political system, made Horowitz, who is considered more mainstream, believe that he can beat Huldai. Khenin decided not to run this year.

Estimates are that Horowitz could perform very well in the center of the city, where Khenin beat Huldai in 2008. The city’s residential neighborhoods in the north – home to the upper-middle class – are Huldai’s stronghold, but Horowitz could have some appeal there too (certainly more than Khenin did). Horowitz’s challenge will be in the south, where locals are frustrated by what they see as the city’s indifference to pressures the asylum seekers’ presence has put on the municipal infrastructure and the local population. I don’t think that Horowitz can win those votes, but if the south doesn’t break in Huldai’s favor, the elections could be closer than people think.

UPDATE: One point I forgot to make is that Khenin’s relative success was due to a great grassroots operation he was able to form and lead. Horowitz will run a very different campaign, so I am not sure that we can assume that Khenin’s 33 percent represents his floor. 

It will also be interesting to see who receives the support of the Tel Aviv gay community’s leaders, who in the past have been Huldai’s political allies.

Ron Huldai has often been mentioned as a potential leader from the center-left on a national stage, but so far he has decided not to leave his post in Tel Aviv.

Jewish culture had always centered around education, and the Zionist founders of Tel Aviv believed that so would the new Jewish society they were helping to establish. Fast forward 50 years, and the high school was torn down. The State of Israel, a decade old at the time, was priding itself on progress, and progress manifested as a skyscraper: 120 meters and 34 stories tall, the tallest tower in the Middle East, with the street was directly beneath it, forming a futuristic automotive underpass. The broader lower floors featured a wax museum, a public library and a department store. The roof over them bore an entire amusement park, while the tower’s top floor offered a popular observatory.

The Shalom Meir Tower was named after the father of its two developers, brothers Morderchai and Moshe Meir. Soon it is became commonly known simply as the Shalom Tower. I pass by it almost every day without thinking much about it. The sixties are over. Loftier towers rise over central Tel Aviv. The wax museum closed down years ago. No longer may visitors to the first Hebrew city witness its strangest exhibit: a wax reenactment of Charles Manson and the Family murdering Sharon Tate and her dinner company. “Meirland” was disassembled, ferris wheels and all.

Penn, Rovina and Shlonsky on display

Last night, for some reason, I mentioned that ferris wheel. I was passing underneath the tower with my girlfriend, Ruthie, and found myself looking up to where it once stood, all colorful and hopeful. “You got to see the Shalom Tower at its days of glory,” she said, “I was too young. Even the department store was gone when I first came to Tel Aviv from the South.”

She’s right, I thought, I was witness to history. We speak of the demolished high school as history. Its silhouette is today the symbol of Israel’s society for preservation of historic places, but by now the the 70s and 80s are also a past worth exploring. Ruthie considers the Shalom Tower a gem, and was sorry when nondescript new developments on our street blocked it from our balcony view. I decided to pay it a visit and see what is left of its past glory.

Upon approaching, I pause and take photos, feeling fairly stupid. During the 60s, the Shalom Tower starred in Tel Aviv’s postcards. today it is thought of by all (except Ruthie) to be another example of Tel Aviv’s dubious post-bauhaus architecture. It is perhaps symbolic that I visit it on the same day that architect Ram Carmi, who designed the city’s monstrous central bus terminal, passed away. The bus terminal is the world’s biggest and contains over 1,000 shops. It was dismissed as a white elephant within less than a decade of its 1993 dedication. Did the Shalom Tower simply take a bit longer to prove a similar failure?

Not quite, so it seems. The lobby is pleasant, still decorated with a large scale mosaic by artist and author Nahum Guttman. A sign over an elevator door reads: “to the library.” I take the elevator and find to my surprise that the old library is not only active, but is thriving. At least 20 young urbanites are here, working on laptops in a peaceful atmosphere. There’s some renovating going on. This library has a future ahead of it. In a city with very few libraries, this is a fond surprise.

Another surprise awaits me on the mezanine floor, which has been turned into a museum of sorts for the city’s history. Past a scale model of central Tel Aviv, and and exhibition of old newspaper ads, six familier faces greet me with frozen stares. The wax is still here! Someone rescued the great Hebrew poets Alterman, Bialik, Penn, Goldberg and Shlonsky, as well as actress Hanna Rovina from the basements, and sat them around an imagined Dizingoff cafe table of the early fifties.

Everything has changed in the Shalom Tower, but nothing fully vanished. The museum is now a single exhibit. The department store has split into many stores. The observatory closed, but the elevators are free for all. I travel to the 29th floor and catch a marvelous view over downtown through a hallway window. The new towers rising over Rothschild are particularly striking. They may put the Shalom Tower to shame, but they can’t beat its perseverance.

The new skyline of Rothschild Blvd.

On the way down, I think of Tel Aviv’s uneasy relationship with the very concept of history. It is a city established on the denial of history. In 2009 Tel Aviv celebrated its centennial, entirely ignoring Jaffa’s 3,800 years of existence. Imagine if Barcelona rejected the Gothic quarter as a separate town, and claimed to be 110 years old today, all because l’Eixample, its first modern quarter, was established in 1903.

Tel Aviv seldom recognizes history before traces of this history are gone or badly damaged. The old high school was torn down. The precious Bauhaus buildings fell into disrepair before being recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site. Tel Avivians were surprised to learn that their boxy abodes were modernist masterpieces. Journalist Doron Rosenbloom likened us to “a sack-clad beggar, who learns one morning that for years he has been wearing a Coco Chanel gown.” We look at our city, see how modest it appears to be, how lacking it is in grand boulevards, in ornate facades, in lasting culinary establishments, and dismiss it as a drifting dune.

Current Mayor Ron Huldai is known for his love of flashy projects. The newly renovated national theater (designed by none other than the late Mr. Carmi) has drawn severe criticism from lovers of the city’s fabric. Our unique symphony hall, and even a few of the city’s beaches, are now subject to development. Meanwhile, police this month attempted to close down “The Block,” Tel Aviv’s state of the art dance club, citing drug trade. Judge Guy Haiman rejected the order, and reminded the police that “This is a vibrant city, whose reputation as a center for around-the-clock activity has gone far and wide.”

Had our society remained centered on education, the value of the city’s aesthetic and vitality would have demanded less explanation. Tel Aviv’s special brand of memories is unique and delightful. Our historical perception as Israelis is so full of dissonance that we overlook much of what is good in real time, just as we ignore so much of what is bad. Appreciation of the present and of the recent past is the first step in preservation. It’s up to us to keep our eyes open for all that is worthwhile, even if it is goofy, or boxy, or poor, even if it is graced by neither Boaz nor Yachi, even if its glory days are over.

Protest in Jaffa against Kedem St. plan, Nov 9, 2012 (Mati Milstein)

The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality master plan for all Jaffa includes construction of a 15-meter multi-lane road on Kedem Street in Ajami, between the Jaffa Port and the city of Bat Yam. It’s a tranquil street that cuts north-south through residential Jaffa, parallel to the bustling business of Yefet Street, and overlooking the beach.

Kedem St. in Ajami overlooking the beach (Mati Milstein)

This happens to be my favorite beach. It is still untouched by all the hotels and tall buildings that litter Tel Aviv’s coastline, not yet tainted by heavy tourism, and is enjoyed by the people who live in Jaffa – a mixture of Jewish, Arab and Russian citizens. Actually, the promenade built by the city in Ajami in the last decade is really nice, thoughtful and beneficial, serving everyone in the community, from large families, to joggers, bikers and fishermen.

But this plan – based on what the community organizers say – seems only interested in one thing: turning Jaffa into a profitable seaside resort where only the wealthy can afford to reside or visit.

According to the master plan (Hebrew), ”Construction between Kedem and the slopes of Jaffa will include hotels, public buildings and municipal buildings. Residential buildings will be permitted on a limited basis and only for the purpose of institutionalizing existing residences.” This sounds like a way of saying hotels and high-priced apartments will get preference to the existing residential neighborhoods, and indeed, according to the lawyer representing the Jaffa committees, some houses will be destroyed to build this new road.

Residents of Jaffa looking at a map of the plan for Kedem St. (Mati Milstein)

During the protest, Adv. Amir Badran called the plan “a tragedy for the residents of Jaffa, Jews and Arabs,” adding that  the city’s plan will “cut Ajami off from the beach, creating a large road that is dangerous for children to cross.” He and other speakers, speaking in both Hebrew and Arabic, said it is not too late to put a stop to the plan before it gets underway and urged the community to fight it.

The city plan has not yet been put through the pipeline, and is still at the initial stages when people can file opposition. Residents have organized a petition, which they began circulating at the protest.

Residents signing a petition against the plan (Mati Milstein)

People at the protest chanted “Jaffa belongs to Jaffaim” (residents of Jaffa) in Hebrew and Arabic, and held signs that read “Don’t kick Ajami out of the beach” and “the Kedem bypass road is an economic transfer.”

In these moments, when people who share the same communal space come together, it feels like there is a genuine sense of neighborliness and coexistence among Israelis and Palestinians against greater evils espoused by the privileged and the powerful – those who are not only perpetuating the inequalities between Arabs and Jews, but also between the socioeconomically weak and the powerful, whatever ethnicity they may be.

Due to the influx of gay tourists who arrived in Tel Aviv for Pride Week, we can say with some certainty that more Belgians and Danes marched in the Gay Pride Parade than Palestinian citizens of Israel. That’s not just because of the understandable need for the gay Arab population to maintain a low profile. Gay Palestinian organizations boycott pride events because they consider them examples of “pinkwashing” – presenting Israel as enlightened due to its treatment of homosexuals, while denying the human rights of others.

Al Qaws (The Rainbow), familiar to the gay community in Israel mainly because of the queer Palestinian parties it holds in Tel Aviv, was among the organizations that did not encourage its members to march in the parade. But Al Qaws did not ignore Pride Week – it provided an alternative. On the Thursday prior to the parade, Al Qaws members met at Cafe Dina in Jaffa, with people from the Qadita website, for an event called “Reading Queer Texts in Arabic.”

Qadita is a site founded by Alaa Khlakhal and is dedicated to culture and criticism in Arabic. It offers its readers a rare and permanent column of often artistically ambitious queer writing, edited by Raji Bathish. “The Israeli LGBT culture is fully interwoven with Israeli militarist culture,” says Bathish. “It tries to emulate the Israeli mainstream, in the central Tel Avivian, hetero-normative sense, with its army and gyms. The queer movement needs to change the system and social structure from the base, rather than reaffirm them, and the LGBT movement here only deepens the system of oppression.”

The name of Bathish’s column, hosting diverse works of literature and commentary, was recently changed from “Gays and Texts” to “The Queer Text Corner,” in an attempt to separate it from the Arabic-language gay blog culture prevalent in the Middle East, to stress queerness as a principle, and to create a clear reference to literature. The event celebrating it, attended by about 40 men and women, was a break from the mainstream pride events not only in its use of the Arabic language, but also in its focus on challenging content.

Activist, cultural figure, and DJ Muhammad Jabali spoke about queer traditions in Arab literature, including homoerotic poetry from the Middle Ages, and openly gay artists who resided in the courts of the caliphs. Sociologist Dr. Ismail Na’ashaf and Islamic art researcher Dr. Hosmi Shahadi also participated. The theories of Edward Said and Mary Douglas were shared, and the ghosts of Mahmoud Darwish’s Tel Avivian poems were read. Although no desire for men is expressed in the poems, their liberalism excludes them from collections of his poems published in Arabic.

The artistic program was of particular interest, showcasing performance artists reading texts from queer literature. Facing a mirror, artist Tony Haddad read a passage describing a shave the morning after a night of love-making. The person shaving remembers the act of love and the man with whom he shared his bed. He ponders the beard and removing the beard. After the reading, the audience realized that Haddad had been bound to the cafe door. Another text included the line, “Every time I put on lipstick, my prick gets hard.”

In light of this creative and intellectual endeavor, the gay Hebrew beach party seems particularly flighty. In previous years, more radical and political elements tried to break out and march in an alternative parade. This year a number of activists organized a march within the mainstream parade, wearing black and carrying signs with slogans ranging from “There is no pride in the occupation” to “Pride without racism.”

The group’s Facebook page featured a debate on the proximity of the Pride events to the attacks on refugees in south Tel Aviv. Activist Elizabeth Tsurkov shared an article on the page describing Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai’s complicity in a poster campaign advocating the removal of refugees from the city. “Tel Aviv cannot be presented as a liberal city while pogroms are taking place and the municipality allots funds for a campaign calling on Israel to deport and jail refugees,” Tsurkov wrote.

Jabali’s words emanate in Tsurkov’s claim, when he explains why the Pride Parade is unacceptable from the Palestinian perspective. “This parade is taking place during the same week marking the 45th anniversary of the occupation. How can you participate in the parade that your boyfriend from Ramallah can’t reach?” Is Israel too dark and difficult a place for pride celebrations? Maybe, maybe not. In any case, the parade estranges many, who experience discrimination on grounds other than sexual orientation, as well as those aware of the discrimination that others face, who feel forced to look for creative solutions.

Last week, Tel Aviv City Councilman Binyamin Babayoff (Shas) sent a letter to Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, Minister of Transportation Israel Katz, and Dr. Moshe Tiomkin, a Tel Aviv councilman and the head of the city’s Transportation, Traffic and Parking Authority. In an excerpt published by Mynet (local online Hebrew news affiliated with Ynet), Babayoff wrote that “illegal foreign workers fill the buses…” leaving no room for Jewish Israeli residents of South Tel Aviv. He added that “foreign workers… give off a bad smell and they might, God forbid, cause all kinds of diseases.”

Reminding of Jim Crow laws, Babayoff proposes that the state introduce separate buses for migrant workers and refugees or limit their access to buses during peak hours of heavy traffic, thus giving preference to Jewish Israeli residents.

Speaking to Mynet, Babayoff claimed that his proposal was not racist. He said that Jewish Israelis in South Tel Aviv “live a life of hell” because of the foreigners in the neighborhood. He added that his letter was a response to the appeals of “scared” residents.

In a comment to Mynet, the Tel Aviv Municipality condemned Babayoff’s proposal and called it “racist,” adding that it is committed to “caring for immigrant workers and their basic health needs, education, and welfare…”

(Though they’re not migrant workers, homeless African refugees might beg to differ with the city’s statement).

After Babayoff embarked on a campaign against migrant workers and refugees in the summer of 2010—calling on South Tel Aviv landlords not to rent to these “infiltrators” and claiming that doing so violates Jewish religious law—25 area rabbis signed an “Edict Forbidding the Rental of Apartments to Infiltrators.” Shortly thereafter, 10 South Tel Aviv real estate agents signed a petition stating they would not rent to illegal residents.

Later that year, hundreds of Israeli rabbis across the country signed a religious edict forbidding the rental or sale of property to Palestinian citizens of the state.

In 2010, Babayoff also participated in a campaign against opening a new kindergarten in the South Tel Aviv neighborhood of Kiryat Shalom. While the school was planned to accommodate migrant workers’ and refugees’ children, it would also provide education to Jewish Israeli students.

In addition to his issues with non-Jews, Babayoff has also publicly voiced homophobic sentiments, referring to Tel Aviv’s Gay Pride Parade as a “shame parade.”

The Schalit festival is of course in full effect, with the media camped outside of his parents’ Mitzpe Hilla, groupies doing pilgrimage and polluting the family’s front yard with soft drink cans and cigarette butts.

The media has well and truly gone off the reservation on this one. After breathlessly reporting on every little phase of the preparations at the family home (They mowed the lawn! They trimmed the hedge! They opened the blinds in his room for the first time since he was captured! They put the Israeli flag back atop the house!!!), came phase two: interviews with everyone possible, no matter how tenuously connected with man of the hour. This includes the neighbor who owns a dog who is reportedly excited for the return of his old playmate (I shit y’all not. This is apparently a very mnemonic mutt), the midwife who delivered him, and the Goddess alone knows who else. I guess we’re lucky they didn’t go for the mohel, or display his enshrined foreskin for all to see.

Worse than these are the various dignitaries (From the Prime Sinister on down) jockeying for a photo-op with the returning “boy” – a guy who needs a bunch of strangers crowding him like he needs a hole in the head.

Amir Oren had a cryptic note in his opinion piece in Haaretz today about “wives of politicians” trying to wiggle into the frame when Schalit touches down. This seems to point to Judy Shalom Nir Mozes, wife of Silvan Shalom, Minister of Regional Development and Bibi’s most bitter rival within Likud. Judy, a vulgar bimbo who glories in devotedly following teeny bopper fashions and the most lame-brained of “mystic” practices and charlatans, once got a deputy Ambassador to the US fired because he wouldn’t or couldn’t get her face time with Madonna.

Now this was published by Oren on Sunday morning, but one must assume he called for comment on Saturday, because the aforementioned Judy, who is very active on Twitter, released this little tidbit: “Somebody ask Yair’s mother why she brought false charges against her son’s boyfriend and tried to have him deported? Just unbelievable“. The only Yair that comes to mind, especially one with a mother in position to move the police to do her bidding, is of course Yair Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s Arab-hating soldier boy. Therefore one assumes that the leak about “wives of politicians” came from “circles close to the PM”, and that said tweet was made in retaliation. Now, if both allegations are true (and if we read the pointed arrows correctly), then Judy is guilty of her usual revoltingly bad taste, whereas the Prime Minister’s unhinged other half is guilty of offenses quite worse. Good times…

Back to the Schalit deal: Not everyone is ecstatic about it. This includes everyone to the right of Netanyahu, as well as the majority of those who lost loved ones to the murderous activities of those slated for release. One of these, a Shevuel Schijveschuurder, who lost both parents and three siblings in the suicide at the Sbarro pizzeria, protested the deal by defacing the memorial for murdered PM Yitzhak Rabin – hallowed ground for the establishment milquetoast Israeli “Left” – dumping some paint on it and spraying the words “price tag.”

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai (whose name most appropriately means “the rat”) bleated that this most unfortunate person should “have his hands cut off“. Me, I’d sooner see that happen to Huldai himself, if anyone. While the act isn’t “nice”, I for one would not presume to judge someone so terribly afflicted, and in general the establishment left really needs to get over its cult of Rabin, which has done the cause of peace more harm than good. Schijveschuurder was arrested but released shortly thereafter, and now he and his remaining siblings are threatening to leave Israel and return to the Netherlands in protest. Other victims of crimes committed by the prisoners slated for release, while not defacing memorials, are also seething, and have futilely petitioned the Supreme Court against the deal. Many of them are also complaining that the security establishment didn’t even have the decency to notify them of the release of their loved ones’ murderers, leaving them to find out about it in the news. This of course sounds absolutely right for an establishment run by the high-functioning autistic Ehud Barak.

Not enough props were given to the role of Dr. Gershon Baskin, peace activist extraordinaire, in mediating this deal. But you can be sure that the first time one of the released terrorists kills again, he’ll be blamed vociferously.

This being the Middle East, there was of course some last minute drama, when Hamas – capable and competent organization that it is – realized it had misreckoned the number of female Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, and therefore the list they had finalized the deal with left a handful of ladies behind bars. But even they eventually understood that the deal was signed, sealed, and irreversible, so they’ll have to deal with the egg on their face.

As for my own opinion on the deal – I won’t even try to decipher the security risk is releasing a bunch of scum responsible for the deaths of nearly 300 civilians. Nor will I say overmuch about the stunning about-face in the position of Netanyahu, who used to be strenuously against the deal. The point that pisses me off about this deal – other than the release of the monstrous Amna Mona, who seduced a 16 year old boy online and drove him to his death – is the fact that a few Arab Israeli citizens who participated in terrorist acts are being released in this deal as well.

If Israel gave a crap about statehood and citizenship, rather than caring only about tribal ethnicity, this would never ever stand. But just like Israel is embracing the cancer of occupation that will kill it, so it is handing Hamas standing as a representative of Israeli citizens. Clever!

OK, enough Schalit and on, as promised, to a few other matters that still matter:

The labor relations court issued an injunction voiding the resignation letters of hundreds of medical interns. This is the second time it has done this, and this time it has done so after the interns submitted personal resignation letters as the court specified they needed to the first time around. Basically, the court is saying they can’t quit no matter what, rendering them forced conscripts who must continue to work for salaries of around $11 per hour, which after working 250+ hours a month with much overtime pay for nights and weekends comes out to just under $50K a year. Not surprisingly, there aren’t really that many young Israelis lined up to replace those who have had enough. Would you pay for 7 years of grueling school and then work like a rented mule (with exposure to malpractice suits and the violence of frustrated or bereaved relatives of patients) all for that kind of pay? Me neither.

Saturday night saw a resumption of the “J14″ social justice movement, with a demonstration on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Blvd. but this time the media had another toy to play with, and so it ignored the event for hours despite there being quite a bit of action, arrests, protesters surrounding pig cruisers until the arrestees were released and so on.

Speaking of J14 and social justice, have a tidbit: In Israel, 10% of all workers are employed through temp agencies, which enable their employers to avoid paying them even the most basic benefits. In the rest of the developed world, such modern slaves constitute.

Under the cover of the FestiSchalit, Israel’s Jewish first, democratic-later-if-at-all ruling coalition has submitted a bill calling for a draconian increase in the sums of libel verdicts – from ILS 50K without proof of damage today to 300K. The new bill also calls for punishment if “full response” was not run with the article itself. So the subject of an expos’e can forestall publication either by dodging requests for comment, or by submitting a response of such length as to render publication of the piece impractical. Those behind the bill may bat their eyelids all they want and simper that “just write the truth and you won’t have to pay”, but their intent is clear – to curtail the freedom of the press.

It’s olive picking season, and that means skirmishes all over the west bank between Palestinian villagers and settlers determined to impeded their access to their lawfully owned groves. The army pretends to maintain order, but more often than not sides with the settlers. Just the other day they left a Palestinian man bound and blindfolded in a field for seven hours.

Civics teachers in the religious sector are reporting that since the leading rabbis began issuing fatwas against the renting of homes to Arabs, they are finding themselves increasingly unable to relay to their pupils concepts such as equality under the law and the impermissibility of racial or ethnic discrimination. Concurrently, a little tempest broke out when some ass or other demanded that only religious instructors be allowed to train teachers of civics in religious schools. Note that we’re not talking about the teachers themselves – EVERYONE agreed that only a properly indoctrinated jehovaist may come into direct contact with the impressionable minds of the young sheep themselves. No. This was about the instructors of adult teachers.

And on that separate and unequal note, we shall call it a wrap. These tours are not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

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Rick’s book, “Jewcy Story,” a popular history of the 2nd Temple Era, can be bought for Amazon Kindle, for cell phone or for PC here.

Desecration of Rabin Memorial (Photo: Activestills)

Sanctity (and irrelevance): A large number of good leftist were shocked, shocked yesterday morning when Shvuel Schijveschuurder sprayed “price tag” and “release Yigal Amir” near the Rabin Memorial in Tel Aviv. Schijveschuurder also splashed the memorial with white paint. The first comment by mayor Ron Huldai was that “we should cut off the hands which allow themselves to harm what is sacred and important to the people of Israel.”

Leaving Huldai’s Saudi fantasies aside – my colleague Dimi Reider already dealt with them – we should deal with the other part of his comment. Is the Rabin Memorial truly “sacred and important to the people of Israel”? Only if you’re a devout member of the dwindling Rabin cult, which sprang into being immediately after the murder, and which was epitomized in a placard appearing days afterwards: A picture of the martyred prime minister, titled “Ose Shalom Bi’mromaiv”, “Peace maker in His heavens”. This epithet, as any Orthodox Jew will know, is reserved to Him who spoke and beget the world. The cultists put Rabin, so to speak, at the Lord’s right hand.

The Rabin worship was a grave error. The issue wasn’t Rabin; the issue was the murder. But to speak about the murder; about the incitement which came before it; about the rabbis who sanctioned it; about the conspiracy of yeshiva boys (three were convicted, four allowed to slip away) to murder him; about the yeshiva leaders who sent their students into the streets, so they can cry “We’ll banish Rabin/by blood and fire” on every corner – well, that was risky. This was the stuff which could, and with justification, take the country to a civil war.

So the good leftists spoke about the victim instead of the murderer and the public whose servant he was, and as a result the meaning of the murder faded away. In the last few years, the yearly rally – the main event in the cult’s calendar – is time and again on the brink of cancellation, because there’s a limit to the times people will come together in order to try and revive the diminishing memory of the old melancholy feeling and listening to sad songs. In a vibrant society, a political murder is a call for action; In Israel, it was an invitation to coil into a foetal position and whine. One may suspect the endless reminiscing is a way by which the mourners absolve themselves of the need to rethink the whole history of the Oslo Accords and the slowly-revealed meaning of Rabin’s slogan, “We’re here, and they [should be] over there.”

Rabin was no saint. His hands were full of blood. The only peace he made was with Jordan, which, let’s face it, wasn’t a monumental task. As Security Minister, he ordered the IDF to “break the hands and legs” of Palestinian protesters, and when the inevitable war crimes were committed, he adroitly avoided any responsibility. As prime minister, he approved Operation Accountability in Lebanon, which expressly targeted Lebanese civilians population, shelling it for days so that its cries of anguish may force the government in Beirut to rein in Hizbullah (the architect of this infernal policy was, natch, Ehud Barak). His grave is not “sacred” (it takes a strange kind of perversion to consider yourself a secular person and yet consider a grave to be sacred); his memorial certainly not. Those who insisted on speaking about the man and not about the murder, those who worship the memory of a kindly grandfather, should not be surprised that the day of his mourning is quickly becoming less important than that of the fast day in memory of Babylonian collaborator Gedalia.

The silencing: The media quickly dubbed Schijveschuurder as insane. There’s no good reason to think he is, and people should be wary of the tendency to call political opponents (and Schijveschuurder is clearly a right-winger) insane. The practice has a sordid history.

Listening to Schijveschuurder himself, it seems he carried out the act while in compos mentis. He wanted to protest the release of the murderers of family as part of the Netanyahu Deal. He knew he had to break through a massive cone of silence by the Israeli media, who marginalized the opponents of the deal. His logic was clear: The mass support for the deal comes from the Left, a provocation is needed – and what could be more provocative than the besmirching of the memorial of the Left’s idol?

"Free Yigal Amir" (Rabin assassin) and "Price tag" graffitied at Rabin Memorial (Photo: Activestills)

Yours truly does not support, generally, the defacing of monuments; but I was not at all shocked when someone, forgot his name, spilled paint on the Baruch Goldstein mausoleum in Kiryat Arba. On the contrary. The people living in former Soviet-occupied lands who pull down Stalin statues and Red Army monuments have my complete sympathy, and should someone blow the statue of the butcher Sir Douglas Haig sky-high, I’d donate to his defense fund. The pain of people hurt by the Netanyahu Deal ought to be expressed somewhere, and the mainstream media does not seem to cooperate. The Kahanists, outlawed after the Goldstein massacre, are fond of saying that “when you shut someone’s mouth, his hands will tal, instead.” There’s some truth in that. Large segments of the population oppose the deal, and we don’t hear them because the media is busy in its Schalit orgy, and trying to convince us that anyone who opposes the deal is either a raving right winger or a raving loony.

Supporting the extreme right wing is still legal, or so I hear. Furthermore, Alex Fishman wrote yesterday in Yediot that of the terrorists Netanyahu is about to release, 279 were sentenced to life for killing 599 Israelis. The people released in the infamous Gibril deal of the 1980s have, in comparison, murdered “just” 178 Israelis. The ISA (AKA Shin Beth), according to Fishman, estimates that 60% of the prisoners will return to terrorism. Assuming they would be just as effective as before, the price of the Netanyahu deal can be estimated in 359 dead Israelis. Assuming the ISA would be supernaturally effective and will foil 99% of their plots – not bloody likely, particularly if relations with the PA will collapse – then we are dealing with four murdered Israelis. Last I checked, four is more than one. Statistically, we sacrifice four Israelis, at least, to the Schalit Moloch. Hamas, we are told, was not even willing to say it will refrain from capturing soldiers in the future. Yes, Netanyahu was that firm, that resolute.

Then again, it’s always easier to identify with the person we know than with future victims, who by definition are unknown. The campaign of the Schalit cult was wildly successful: Every Israeli knows Schalit, and much of the public was convinced to treat him as a “child.”

Second, there are the families of the victims, who are now asked politely to shut up so as not to spoil the celebrations (Netanyahu’s lapdog, Hanoch Daum, wrote precisely that in Yediot this morning). Dvir Volk, a blogger who learned the murderers of his father are to be released, wrote on Twitter bitterly that “If I had a shekel for every year the people who murdered my father spent in jail, I would still not have enough money to buy toilet paper and wipe Bibi’s piss from my face.” One can assume thousands of people, who lost their dear ones and their friends to murderers about to be released, feel like him, as do hundreds of thousand – if not millions – of people who think the Netanyahu Deal is both folly and crime.

And if the media shuts their mouth, it at least should not act surprised when their hands speak, instead.

The memorial on the site of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in Tel Aviv was vandalised yesterday (not “desecrated,” pray), by Shvuel Schijveschuurder, who had lost both his parents and three of his siblings in the Sbarro pizza place bombing in 2001. The young man said he was driven to pour paint on the memorial and spray-write a nearby wall with a call to release Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, after he heard the men responsible for wiping out most of his family were about to be set free as part of the Schalit exchange. Despite the fact he sprayed the notorious “price tag” slogan as well, the police seem to have attributed his act to his personal grief and rage, and released him on bail. For Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai, however, this wouldn’t do.

Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai strongly condemned the vandalizing of the memorial for assassinated prime minister Rabin. “We should cut off the hands that allow themselves [sic] to harm what is sacred and important to the people of Israel,” the mayor said.

If you thought this was a one-time slip-up, here’s Huldai a week earlier, rightly but somewhat Saudily condemning the vandalising of Muslim and Christian cemetery in Jaffa:

Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai met with senior figures in Jaffa’s Arab community and harshly condemned the vandalism. “I expect the hands of those who do such things to be cut off,” Huldai said…

Hm. Now, I’m sure the good mayor only means it figuratively (right?). But the ease with which this particular figure of speech lends itself to his tongue is disconcerting. One can’t help but wonder whether the next time social justice protesters try to occupy the municipality buildings or Huldai’s front yard, we’ll hear a cry from the mayoral chair: Off with their heads!