Monday, August 29, 2011

Happy Birthday, Gilad

Corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas more than half-a-decade ago.  Not taken in battle, not a prisoner of war of a foreign country.  Kidnapped by a band of thugs.  Since then, he languishes in a Hamas cell, isolated from the world, with not even the Red Cross to visit him he's denied even the most basic rights accorded to prisoners everywhere.  And that is because he's not a POW, he's a hostage and his kidnappers are not soldiers, they are thugs.  But I've said that about them before haven't I, that they are thugs?  What else can I call them?

To return Gilad, Hamas demands that hundreds of Palestinian terrorists are let go. The numbers change, names are added and erased from the list but that's the core of it.  These terrorists are currently in Israeli jails and are given food, shelter, medical treatment, access to communications and the Red Cross and other international organizations monitor their conditions.  Many here feel that it's more than they deserve but that's beside the point.

But what Hamas wants most is not their murderers back, most of all they want to establish a sort of equivalency.  To make an Israeli soldier kidnapped at gunpoint seem the same as a Hamas terrorist, caught and tried and jailed after killing civilians in a terrorist attack.

There's no equivalency, but you can see why the thought would appeal to the leadership.

That's what they want.  We just want our kid back.  We want to make good on Israel's promise to its soldiers that none of them will be left behind.

Six birthdays in captivity for no crime, just for being a conscripted soldier in the Israeli army doing his duty.  There is no hell, but in this case I wish there was one so that the cowards that did this and are still doing it could have a place where they could rot forever.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

New Species Identified. Please meet: The Israeli Macho

Years and years ago I remember picking up a book in a dentist's office called How to be a Jewish Mother.  It was written with tongue wedged firmly in cheek and it started with the disclaimer that you needn't be either Jewish or a mother to be a "Jewish Mother."  You could be a Scottish lorry driver as long as you fit the pattern.  Not high culture admittedly, but it did the job of keeping my mind off the impending root canal as I waited.


With that as context please meet another specimen in the same genus, The Israeli Macho (macho macho israeliensis).  Although m. israeliensis  was identified roughly sixty years ago it didn't become clear that is really was a separate species of macho until recently (zoologists have very arcane rules for this sort of thing and I'm no expert on how the process works.  By the way, and individual does not necessarily have to be either Israeli or male to be classified as m. israeliensis, although it certainly helps.


It used to be that m/ israeliensis was a simple species to identify, even in the wild without those helpful little signs that zoo keepers and TV news producers sometimes provide.  To wit, it used to be a male, 50 years of age or more, in politics, and retired with senior rank from the military.  Quietly observing the macho in his natural environment one could usually hear at least some of his very distinct calls, the most popular of them went something like "...we will pursue these animals/terrorists/saboteurs/criminals to the end of the world if need be, and if they are already dead we will pursue them into the jaws of hell, just so that we may do justice on them again."  I'm very bad at imitating the calls that animals make in the wild and even worse at transliterating them but you get the idea.  Some variations on the call: "No price is too high for security."  "We are the Sparta of the modern age."  "We are tough, we are smart and clever, you can't hide from us."  "Ice and iron flow through our veins."  Yada, yada, nada.


Nowadays, m. israeliensis is a little harder to identify.  For one, it's often a woman, for another, they've learned how to mask their call to mimic that of the common diplomat (legatus vulgaris).  So now we get former Foreign Minister (and current opposition leader) Tzipi Livni chiming in with, "terror must be fought with force" despite the fact that she's a woman, and Culture Minister Limor Livnat contributing this jewel, "We will strike with all our might, so that no one doubts us. Israel's well-known detterance capabilities will prevail once again." 


So much easier when they went around threatening to kill people they disliked.  Wait, wait, they still do. Speaking about the recent wave of terrorist attacks Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said, We killed the leaders of the organization that sent the terrorists. But that is only the first response.”  Not to be left behind, Defense Minister Ehud Barak--m. israeliensis extraordinaire-- actually threatened decapitation.  This paragon of clear and rational thought informed us that "the chances are very high that his (the attack's planner) head will be separated from his body."


M. Israeliensis's natural environment is the government campus centered on the Knesset (parliament).  This presents another problem in identifying him (her? it?).  The place is lousy with a related species, the Member of the Knesset (Clitellata-Hirudinae).  The problem for the amateur zoologist is that the macho can disguise itself as an MK as it stalks its prey.  Did I mention that Macho is a predator?  It is, it stalks reporters and eats ratings.


A few days ago, some of our neighbors from Gaza went psycho and decided that killing a family of Israelis on their way to a beach holiday sounded like really good sport.  A couple of other psychopaths decided that this would be a wonderful opportunity to bomb civilian targets.  These were cowardly attacks that no sane country in the world would allow to go unpunished.


These are acts are murder, especially heinous in being indiscriminate, almost random.  I understand and agree that they also have a symbolic aspect.  They are a provocation to Israel, trying to goad it into doing something stupid.  They are a challenge to its sovereignty and to its security.  Clearly they demand a reaction that is larger than just capturing the men that committed the crime and bringing them to justice (although I would be very happy if we could accomplish that at least).  Last week's murders are all these things and more; what they are not is grist for the mill of posturing politicians eager to feed their hunger for exposure.


I'm all for bio-diversity and preservation, but I'll make an exception in this case.  I wouldn't share a tear if macho macho israeliensis were to go the way of the dodo.

Monday, August 22, 2011

300,000 people demonstrate in Israel, and the government doesn't have a clue why

Remember the 70s movie Network?  In it, Howard Beale, a news anchor with declining ratings, goes off his rocker and starts ranting and raving, urging people to open their windows and scream with him, "I'm angry as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."  And they do, by the thousands. Craziness ensues.


Fast forward 35 years and the central streets and squares of Israel are filled with people quietly, cogently, and simply saying to the powers that be that we really are mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.  No shouting from the rooftops, no threats, just row upon row of honest citizens living in tents.link  The sad part is that those in power are completely deaf to what is really being said.


People in power, especially those in government have asked the protesters - some tentatively and some dismissively - 'what do you want?'  Expecting of course a list of demands that could be haggled over.  What 'they' fail to get is that there is nothing specific that the demonstrators want.  Oh sure, affordable housing, affordable education, Gilad Shalit back, you name it.  But it all boils down to something very simple.  We want our lives to belong to us.  


How about taking a little less in taxes and returning a little more in tangible benefits?  Would that be so hard, that they money that I pay in taxes might actually be used to my benefit?  At the end of the day (and the days have been long indeed), the protesters want the government to understand that our lives are our own.  That they money we make belongs to us and that they take some of it away, and not as is the case today, that they money we make belongs to the government and that they'll leave us some of it so that we can keep on making money for them.


To understand this simple truth, that our lives belong to us, would require for the government to change its collective mind.  Not change its opinion or its position.  Change its mind.  Literally, stop thinking that an over-large, over-bearing, arrogant behemoth knows the solution to the country's problems, and start thinking that it, they, whatever, are here to serve us.  To allow us to grow.  The government is too large, it takes up to much space, it suffocates life, and for it to make the protesters happy, it'll have to shrink itself and its role in society.


This brings to mind yet another picture, Creature Comforts.  In it, a very funny Brazilian panther explains in a sentence what the government of Israel simply cannot get through their collective head, "We need more space."

Disproportionately Evil

Disproportionately Evil I had plain forgotten that at some point in the distant past I tried to write this blog. I did keep it up for a whil...