israeli politics

remember who you are - 9.9.26

Sometimes I think of who I was before Corona and what followed warped my concept of self, my values, my freedom to think for myself.  My freedom to think independently of the situation around me.  

But then that was the principle of this diary in the first place – that my individual identity is connected to my environment.

I don’t know if I felt like this in the past.  But it is the case – my life has been determined by my family, my schooling, my rebellion, my acquiescence, etc.  

But the situation in recent times is one of enforced identity. Because I spend so much time reading about a Jew whose existence was determined by his Jewishness, his desire to identify with his German self, and ended because of his success as well as his failure, I keep thinking about that idea of socially enforced identity.

Today my examples center around Arabs who live here and have both identified with Israel and have not been understood by the society in general as suffering from the same situation, suffering from both directions.  How could I not identify with them?  

 

remember who you are – Read Post »

israeli politics

They Didn't Wake Me - 8.9.26

We were all asking the question on the morning of October 7, 2023.  We were awake, where was our prime minister?   Why wasn’t someone doing something?  

When he finally explained his absence, it was that he hadn’t been wakened.

And now we are being told that he had been warned 10 days before the event.

Can you use that excuse in your life?  

 

 

what a g

They didn’t wake me – Read Post »

israeli politics

Holiday preparations - 7.9.26

We keep seeing clips of people of Iran showing their meager grocery purchases, and I see the clips again and again in my dreams.  

Me, I usually order online  and have been ignoring the fact that many of my favorite products have disappeared from the shelves.  And the prices have risen way beyond reason.  Even the cheapest coffee is one third more than it was last year.   I am paying twice as much for groceries than before the war.  

But on this holiday, under the immediate threat of an Iranian attack, we need to celebrate even more.  

And please remember – this war started on October 7, 2023.  remember.

 

 

holiday preparations – 7.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

The interview - 4.9.26

I just wanted to add that the interviewer, Ben Caspit, affirmed on tv that the timing of this interview with Ruth Bar has nothing to do with the election.  He said that the book she was just publishing now is one she had been working on for six years and she had been in touch with him years ago about it.  I am sure someone will contest that affirmation.  

I am also sure that there are a lot of challengable snippets that will be coming out in the next month, and that this very damaging interview will be undercut.  

But I believe every word she said.


The interview – 4.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

You have to read this - 4.9.26

this interview in the jerusalem post with the ex-lover of Bibi kept me reading:

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-907577?utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September42026

Even though I usually despise terminology and scientific models for human behavior, this discussion of Bibi’s behavior is something even I have been tracing for years.  It is an election- determining piece.

you have to read this – 4.9.26 Read Post »

israeli politics

Everywhere in Tel Aviv - 2.9.26

well, not everywhere.  We started off the day realizing on the way to the hospital that I forgotten to put the proper papers together for the skin examination I was supposed to do at the hospital.  Both of us were angry at my failures , but the receptionist was used to people like me, and even though my memory continued to fail me throughout the examination and everything went smoothly.

What didn’t go so smoothly was the  drive to the museum right after.  We kept finding ourselves on blocked roads, and I kept thinking – how great it will be to come to this city in a year’s time when the repairs are done, and even though the heat may still be unbearable it will be amazing, with everything accessible and easy to enjoy.

Once we got to the museum, we could begin to forget the morning and the tests.  It is not that the exhibits were so familiar  and well-known.  It was the fact of the exclusion Israeli artists have been experiencing that gave the opportunity to provide a safe space for local artists to blossom.  The imagination and invention of the curators provided us with a novel experience, and allowed us to skip the museum shop which always provides me with a consolation when the art is not as exciting as promised.  

We didn’t visit the ground zero exhibit – which is probably the most important one because it shows the art that was saved from the Nazis.  But we’d seen it twice, and we’ll see it again.

And I was very anxious to get to the library to get a library card.  I don’t know why I’ve waited so long, but I’m so connected to the university I only recently began to understand how wonderful the local library system is.  “How do I get a card?” I asked at information.  “You haven’t come around for a long time, have you?” he said.  “Well actually I had a show here 2 years ago…”  But that’s not what he meant.  EVERYONE knows the library.  It seems like the most popular site for young people in the city.  And when he pointed me to the desk one flight up, I saw how crowded it was.  Why didn’t I notice that the entrance was so full of people on the stairs I could barely get by?  Why didn’t I see that the cafeteria was full of people?  I just couldn’t digest the idea of excitement at a library.

Our final stop was with grandchildren, which topped our day.  

I will not leave the air conditioning tomorrow.

 

everywhere Read Post »

israeli politics

attacks - 2.9.26

Yesterday i was jealous of my friend who came back from abroad and went up north to rest up from the trip.  I was also afraid.  Iran was also about to attack us.  So my friend got rockets over her head and I am a little less jealous and actually, have little to be jealous about at all in the world.  Everyone seems to be getting into some kind of trouble.  This is terribly sad.  I would prefer to be jealous.

Even some relatives from abroad have cut off relations with me because I’m Israeli. “You see Arabs as inhuman.”  You don’t belong in Palestinian land.”  First, you are seeing me as inhuman and I do not.  I have been teaching Arab students for over 50 years and until these years found them to be friends forever. Now Mayzun would answer my letters, Amal

has disappeared to me.  And others, and others, and others.  My projects with Arab writers have melted away… it is a loss for all of us.

attacks – 2.9.26 Read Post »