AUTHOR:G.
DATE:5/03/2003 09:05:00 PM
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BODY:
Downtown
This is Gush Dan (Tel Aviv area) downtown, whichis located in the city of Ramat Gan one street across the eastern border of Tel Aviv. Ran Leonard took this great photo. For more photos of the area including the Azrieli skyscrapers check out his blog.
I work in this area (but not in one of those fancy new building though :-( ), which is constantly being developed. So what can you see in this photo: The high tower to the right of the pic is Israel’s and the Middle East’s highest building called “City Gate” rising 200 meters (656 feet) above ground with 69 stories. The building isn’t in use yet. Left of City Gate is the four buildings of the Israeli Diamond Exchange that produces more than quarter of Israel’s industrial export.
The high building on the left with a red dot on it’s top is the posh Sheraton City Tower Hotel were Likud Knesset member Naomi Blumental hosted 15 Likud members at the hotel the evening before the Likud primariesto persuade them to include her in a voting deal, she now fasces charges of election bribery.
The road you see is the Ayalon highway running from north to south, probably the busiest raod in ths state. On the left is Ayalon Darom (the way south) and on the right (it’s hard to see it is Ayalon Tzafon (the way north). In the middle there are railways and the scrimpy Ayalon Stream. That's the end of the tour, hope you enjoied it.
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:5/02/2003 10:53:00 PM
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BODY:
I’m pessimistic
If you want to understand what the meaning of wishful thinking is: in English or in Hebrew.
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:5/02/2003 10:44:00 PM
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BODY:
Fuck off
It appears that the two British Muslims who perpetrated the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv posed as "peace activists" in the Gaza Strip, and even participated in actions carried out by other activists ala ISM martyr Rachel Corrie in the Strip. (more over at Imshin)
No surprise here.
While I disagree with extreme lefty Israeli they have every right to hold these opinions and to act along their beliefs. They are Israelis, they live here, and they feel responsible for what’s going on in their home. So they want to protest against the Israeli government or if they want to support the Palestinians and siding them, well I don’t like it but they’ve got every right to do that.
But those foreign assholes “solidarity activists” that come here to butt in things they have no understanding in and no right to interfere is a whole different story. I loathe those people. They do not fight for their state’s survival, they don’t live in a country surrounded with enemies, they don’t face Arab aggression and terror attacks for more than 100 years, they didn’t face treacherous behavior from their “peace partners”, they didn’t suffer suicide bombings on sometimes a daily base, they don’t have people that wants them destroyed living 5 miles from their homes, they don’t know jack shit!
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:5/01/2003 08:57:00 PM
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BODY:
To the point
A precise description by Yossi Klein Halevi: “No conqueror ever feared, as Israel does, that by withdrawing from occupied territory it would risk not merely diminishment but destruction. Indeed, no country other than Israel faces enemies who refuse to acknowledge its simple right to exist.” (via Hasidic Rebel)
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:4/30/2003 08:07:00 PM
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BODY:
2 British Muslims committed the Tel Aviv suicide bombing
Israeli channel 2 reported just now that the suicide bomber was a British Muslim, another British Muslim, Omar Khan Sharif, was with him with another explosive belt that didn’t work. He managed to escape from the scene and Israeli security forces are hunting him down. Both terrorists came to Tel Aviv from Gaza using their British passports.
Update: LGF reader David Simon asks a damn good question: "Okay Palestinian terror apologists: Please explain how Israeli oppression drove these British citizens to commit this monstrous act."
Those 2 Britons are no different from the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who perpetrated the horrors of September 11th. Britain should do a thorough examination of what grows inside in its cities and mosques.
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:4/30/2003 07:45:00 PM
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BODY:
A lot of news today
Three people were murdered and 35 wounded in a suicide bombing in Mike’s Place bar at Tel Aviv’s boardwalk. Yanai Weiss, Ran Baron and Dominique Caroline Hess.
The Road Map to “peace” was presented to Israel and Palestinians.
General strike paralyzes the state.
State Comptroller accuses Sharon of acting in conflict of interests.
I don’t feel like writing about any of these.
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:4/29/2003 09:30:00 PM
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BODY:
Today was Yom Hashoah
I consider the Holocaust as one of the major events that shaped and still shaping the state of Israel. It’s hard for me to explain myself on this subject even in Hebrew, furthermore to that in English. I know that it’s something that shaped a lot of my worldview.
When I was in the high school I flew to Poland for a journey to the places where Jewish life once thrived and to the places where millions of Jews where exterminated in diabolical ways. Our 8 days journey began in Krakow and continued to Auschwitz- Birkenau, Maidanek, Treblinka and ended in Warsaw. My father’s parents came to Israel from Poland before WW2, their families who stayed in Poland didn’t survive the slaughter.
I saw the fences, the watchtowers the wooden cabins where Jews squeezed in to, the railways that brought millions to the Extermination Camps. I saw the Crematoriums, the Gas Chambers, and the huge mound of human ashes in Maidanek. The belongings of Jews that arrived at Auschwitz, their shoes, their clothes, their sheared hair.
And still. It is hard to comprehend what happened there. But that difficulty only means that we should try harder to learn and remember. I guess the moment that I was closest to understand a bit of what went on in these Extermination Camps was in Auschwitz. It was in the afternoon after the morning was spent in nearby Birkenau, the first Extermination Camp we’ve been to in this journey. I was trying to contain what I just saw. The group entered one of the Gas Chambers in Auschwitz. After our guide described us how Jews were killed there we just roamed in the room silently, then, someone accidentally leaned on the wall and turned off the light. For a second or two the Gas Chamber became pitch dark. My heart almost stopped. It’s hard for me to describe how I felt in those two seconds but try to imagine you, a Jew, are in a Gas Chamber were thousands of Jews were murdered and the light is turned off. It gives me the chills just to think about it now.
What are the lessons I infer from the Holocaust?
Anti-Semitism is not to be taken lightly, no matter what.
The Jewish People must have a country of his own, and that country is Israel.
We must have a strong Israel, for only Jews will do everything possible to save Jewish lives.
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:4/28/2003 09:29:00 PM
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BODY:
Yom Hashoah
From Yad Vashem:
Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah in Hebrew) is a national day of commemoration in Israel, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized. It is a solemn day, beginning at sunset on the 27th of the month of Nisan and ending the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom of marking a day.
Places of entertainment are closed and memorial ceremonies are held throughout the country. The central ceremonies, in the evening and the following morning, are held at Yad Vashem and are broadcast on the television. Marking the start of the day-in the presence of the President of the State of Israel and the Prime Minister-dignitaries, survivors, children of survivors and their families, gather together with the general public to take part in the memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem in which six torches, representing the six million murdered Jews, are lit.
The following morning, the ceremony at Yad Vashem begins with the sounding of a siren for two minutes throughout the entire country. For the duration of the sounding, work is halted, people walking in the streets stop, cars pull off to the side of the road and everybody stands at silent attention in reverence to the victims of the Holocaust. Afterward, the focus of the ceremony at Yad Vashem is the laying of wreaths at the foot of the six torches, by dignitaries and the representatives of survivor groups and institutions. Other sites of remembrance in Israel, such as the Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, also host memorial ceremonies, as do schools, military bases, municipalities and places of work. Throughout the day, both the television and radio broadcast programs about the Holocaust.
In recent years, other countries and Jewish communities have adopted Yom Hashoah, the 27th of Nisan, to mark their own day of memorial for the victims of the Holocaust.
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:4/27/2003 11:07:00 PM
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BODY:
A new article about Israeli bloggers
Allison writes in Israel21c an introduction to Israel’s English blogosphere, yours truly is mentioned as well.
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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:4/27/2003 06:55:00 PM
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BODY:
Hard lessons from lebanon
Foreign soldiers drive out Sunnites, liberate Shiites and are welcomed with sympathy that soon turns into hatred. US soldiers in Iraq? No. Israeli soldiers in South Lebanon 21 years ago. The New York Times brings the recollections of a few Israelis that were there in 1982.
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