AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/11/2003 12:35:00 AM
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BODY: What took her so long?

Diane revives Letter From Gotham



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/10/2003 09:11:00 PM
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BODY: Music 2

As promised here is another Israeli song I like. This one is very different from the last song I recommended. The song is called “Im Telech” (If you’ll go) and is part of the “Idan Raichel Project” which one of the best selling Hebrew albums of this year. This song was number one in the Hebrew chart for many weeks.

Unfortunately I don’t know the name of the singer in this song and it’s a shame not giving her the credit she deserves. If anyone wants to fill me in I’d appreciate that. If you liked the song please consider purchasing it. Again I would like to hear your reviews on the song. Email me: gil_Shterzer-at-hotmail.com

And one last request: If you want to listen to it a few times save it on your hard disc, otherwise it burdens the server.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/10/2003 08:01:00 PM
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BODY: IMAO

Frank’s blog IMAO is a year old now and is widely popular. I never took the time to read it, till now. The man is funny. He was added to my links list.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/10/2003 07:29:00 PM
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BODY: More on the USS Liberty

Haggai adds:

Regarding the point you made about US friendly fire in Iraq, there was also an incident in Afghanistan last year where a US plane mistakenly bombed some Canadians and killed a few of their soldiers. Maybe you remember the weirdest US bombing mistake of recent years, the attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo campaign, which happened simply because the targets were being picked according to a map that had just gone out of date.

The Liberty really was a bizarre incident. Michael Oren's articles about it present a pretty clear picture--there were several mistakes made, none of which would have done any damage on their own, and if any one of them hadn't been made, the incident wouldn't have happened. But add them all up and you get a tragic attack.

The conspiracy theories about Israel's supposed motives for the attack never cease to amaze me. Israel was worried about the US being unwilling to accept its advance into the Golan--so they attacked the American spy ship and killed a bunch of its sailors to keep the Golan attack secret! Yeah, clearly that wouldn't anger the Americans as much.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/10/2003 03:08:00 PM
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BODY: Go and say hello

Rinat is celebrating 1 year in Israel today.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/09/2003 11:52:00 PM
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BODY: Lets give it a go

Okay I’ve been avoiding from writing about more serious stuff since I came back and I know some of you would like to know what I think. Or as Meryl puts it: Gil—hello—can you say "hudna"? I knew you could. Now, can you say "shudna"? Yeah, that's what I'm calling it.

I’ll start by saying I’m not as pessimistic as Meryl. I don’t know if I’m optimistic but, well I don’t know.

This Hudna by its name is a symbol of ancient Arab double-crossiences. You also have to remember that the Palestinians terror groups announced this Hudna unilaterally. Israel didn’t sign anything with those groups. Israel also didn’t obligate to anything before these terrorists. They can deny it as much as they want but this Hudna was declared out of weakness and fear of Israel.

What Israel did do is reaching an agreement with Abu Mazen and Dahlan, which are not people I’d like to have as a friends, but at least they seem to be more reasonable than most Palestinian figures. Think about things a year ago – What if than someone would have offered that the terrorists will lay down their arms (and yes I know it’s only partially and for an evil cause – see Hudna meaning again) and that the Palestinian Authority will be willing to try and stop all attacks against Israel – wouldn’t you have said it’s sounds pretty good?

You have to grasp that the Palestinian are not going to be our true friends. Ever. You also need to understand that Israel cannot keep controlling all those millions of Palestinians, otherwise Jews will be the minority in less than 30 years (and we all know how well the Arabs treated their local Jewish minority in the 20th century).

This Road Map is full of flaws but it’s the only option today. Lets give it a go and see where it gets us. My point is that we need to separate ourselves from the beast. I wish the land of Israel wasn’t occupied with Arabs, but it is. We need to take care of our own interests. Unilateral withdraw will be disastrous but still better than becoming an Arabic state. The best way is to negotiate an agreement. When they'll break it later Israel will be in a much better position.

We need to reach an agreement with the Palestinians and try to get them out of our blood circle. Not because they deserve it – because WE deserve it, WE need it. Time to be realistic.

The only way the Arabs and Muslims can destroy Israel (apart from nuclear annihilation) is by smothering us with millions of Palestinians demographically conquering the land. They are currently on the right path to achieve that evil mission.

For the first time in almost 3 years there is a slim chance to get off the track of killing and pain. Why not give it a chance. If it won’t get us ahead we’ll just go back to where we were and still are, so what is there to lose?

Again the key point is to understand that the Palestinians haven’t become the good guys, not at all, but there is an opportunity opened for Israel to gain points for herself. And I say lets give it a go.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/09/2003 10:59:00 PM
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BODY: Islamic Jihad Chosen as 'World's Most Responsible' Group

At least according to Scott over at ScrappleFace.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/09/2003 10:08:00 PM
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BODY: USS Liberty

Hopefully these new findings can put an end to all those wacky theories that Israel deliberately attacked the ship during the six days war.

Ha’aretz: ” On Monday, the NSA gave him a transcript of conversations held by two Israeli Air Force helicopter pilots who were hovering over the Liberty after it was hit, and these tapes confirm Israel's claim that the attack on the ship, which killed 34 American servicemen and wounded 171, was a tragic error.”

Read the rest over here.


It looks kind of obvious that if in the year 2003 the most advanced army in the world can mistakenly hit and kill troops of its ally army (The US friendly fire incidents in Iraq that kill British troops) In a war held 36 years ago a bystander ship could be mistakenly hit.

I’ll join Imshin's apology for this unfortunate mistake.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/09/2003 09:59:00 PM
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BODY: Another fotoblog

This one contains a lot of photos taken by a reserve soldier during last year’s Defensive Shield operation. A lot of photos from Arafat’s “castle” in Bethlehem.



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/07/2003 03:26:00 PM
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BODY: Take a look at these

You probably know what Photologs (Photoblogs/ Fotologs/ Fotoblog) are. Here is a list of Israeli sites (via Ynet).

They enable you to take a different look on Israel. Photos that are different than those you see in the news abroad but are actually more representing everyday life here.

I like taking photos myself but I must admit that I pretty much neglected this hobby. What I really want now is cellular phone with a camera. This could be a serious upgrade to this blog. Of course the photos aren’t so good but the fact that you carry your cell phone with you all the time enables you to take all sorts of pictures. Any way those phones are still a bit expensive in Israel so I’ll stick to my old Samsung for the time being.

Here are a few Israeli fotologs that are worth checking out:

Alex’s: pic 1, pic 2

Eli’s: pic 1, pic 2

Eden Orion`s: pic 1, pic 2

Kfir_ginel’s

Miatta’s: pic 1, pic 2

sharonref’s: pic 1, pic 2



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AUTHOR:G.
DATE:7/07/2003 02:37:00 PM
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BODY: Links

Looks like I’m having some sort of writers’ block. So in the meanwhile here are a few links:

Remember the Assi & Guri short satiric video about how Israelis interview foreign film stars. Well apparently Assi, who plays the interviewer “Prosper”, did actually interview Rowan Atkinson and Natalie Imbruglia staring in the movie Johnny English. Quite funny.

For the Israeli readers: Check this Adir Miler imitation of Haim Hecht. Excellent.

A new site called SederOlam is soupossed to be according to its own description:

the largest, most comprehensive Jewish database in the world, in its category! Our Database includes: kosher restaurants, shops and hotels, synagogues, mikves and more... all over the world. SederOlam turns the planning task of every trip to an easy, fun experience, and serves as a guide and a helper for every jewish person while travelling.

I guess this could be useful if you keep Kosher and traveling to a new place. It’s also nice to find the local Jewish community if it happens to be a holiday. While I was traveling in Australia in the day of Passover seder me and another Israeli who traveled with me tried to look for a synagogue or a Jewish family to do the Seder with. Unfortunately we were at this small godforsaken tiny town with no Jews living there.



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