Airstrike on Gaza: Israel’s Right of Self-Defence

Here we go again.

On returning home from my jog on Tel Aviv beach, this morning, I turned on Sky News, only to be greeted by the sound of sirens and a hysterical (understandably) Palestinian giving an eyewitness account of events in Gaza. Israel had responded, finally, to the months of provocation from Hamas and its proxies, to the daily barrage of rockets fired at its civilian population. Eighty hit on Wednesday alone.

The sadly predictable emphasis of Sky‘s reporting was on the “fact” that the airstrikes came as Gaza’s children were leaving school (I would have liked school days finishing around 11 in the morning). I didn’t see any such intensive “Breaking News” flashes on Sky (or other networks) covering the daily barrages on Sderot or Ashkelon, or emphasizing the fact that, for months, Israeli children in the worst-affected areas have hardly seen the light of day, being forced to remain in shelters and reinforced rooms. Sadly, we have become accustomed to such uneven coverage, and most of us expect little more.

Israel’s actions, this morning, followed intense debate, both governmental and public, on how to best respond to this continuing, untenable situation. Even the doveish, left-wing intellectuals of Israel’s Meretz party called for military action on Thursday, something virtually unheard of. And the Egyptian Foreign Minister, too, has stated that Hamas had received enough warnings to put a stop to the rocket fire.

Now, the media will wheel out all the usual suspects – the “Pinters” (though, I expect, not Harold) and “Galloways” (I can dream, can’t I?!) – who will trot out the usual crap about the deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of women and children, and the disproportionate response of the “mighty Israel” (if you have, and are interested in challenging, such a notion, an interesting exercise involves taking a look at a map of the Middle East . . . and not one received from one of those Friends of Palestine-type “charities”, many of which are covers that would be more aptly named Give Your Hard-Earned Cash to Help Kill Israelis). From their silence during the bombardment of Israel, day in, day out, for months, are we to assume that they considered that legitimate?

Israel, in response, will have to mobilize its (usually hopeless) spokesmen to defend its actions.

If we can trust the latest pronouncements by Hamas, today’s death toll is high. And it is a tragedy that innocent people will, undoubtedly, have been killed. But, be in no doubt, Israel is in a permanent state of war with Hamas, a neighbouring “government” whose raison d’être is to destroy it. An inevitable consequence of every war is that innocents suffer. To buy into the inevitable Hamas (and general Arab) propaganda, that Israel deliberately and indiscriminately targeted innocent civilians, is for the dimwitted and/or those with their anti-Israel/America/Britain/Jewish/Christian/western/democratic (delete as appropriate . . . though you might choose to keep them all) agenda(s).

To Hamas, the blood of Palestinians is only a little less cheap than that of Israelis. And it has been playing Russian roulette with the lives of Gazans for far too long now. Of course, the leaders of Hamas won’t poke their grubby little heads above the parapet, any more than that coward Nasrallah did in Lebanon in 2006 (he spent the entire war in hiding). But Gazans are responsible for choosing those leaders or, at least, for allowing them to remain in office.

Anyway, it is all very depressing. I, for one, certainly don’t rejoice in the bloodshed or jingoistic notions of revenge.

And it is weird, too – I am writing this on my laptop in a Tel Aviv café, struggling to concentrate through all the loud conversation and laughter (Israelis are a noisy bunch), when less than 45 miles down the Mediterranean coast there is death and destruction.

One thing is for sure, though – neither the British government or public, nor any other, would have tolerated such a situation on its border for so long. That Israel has done so is testament to its democracy, humanity and ethics (even in spite of Wednesday’s eighty rockets, Israel reopened crossings into Gaza on Thursday, to alleviate its worsening humanitarian situation).

That I should even have to write all of this is an indication of the different standards by which the world judges and treats Israel – as I always say (and this one’s mine): like Israelis and their tea, the world doesn’t like its Jews strong.

Unlike seventy years ago, however, we can defend ourselves now. And we will.

Parking Shields: Careers for UK Graduates in Tel Aviv

Tel Avivians spend more time looking for car parking spaces than thinking about sex.

Even though this fact never applied to me – and perhaps not feeling comfortable as the exception to the rule – I recently bought a space.

That space (and this one is true) is worth more than my ex girlfriend’s three room apartment in Be’er Sheva. Even though that might have something to do with the trade around my space being neither sex nor narcotics – and the common language being comprehensible to people other than compatriots of Borat – you get the point . . . parking in Tel Aviv is a nightmare.

It is quite common for residents, returning home from work, to spend 30 minutes plus driving round and round in silent (and sometimes not so silent) prayer. The situation is so bad that the Tel Aviv Municipality, not known for its charity or mercy, even allows residents to request the cancellation of up to two parking tickets a year.

The single most irritating thing in this country (and there is stiff competition) is the saving of parking spaces. Imagine suddenly finding a space, after ages of fruitless circling, only to discover that there is some plonker (“My friend is just coming”) standing in it.

I’d love to see them try and pull something like that in South London.

My first instinct is always to run them over. Then reason sets in. And there’s the rub . . . that Jews, even of the Israeli variety, just know that they would have to be bloody unlucky to find one of their brethren willing (and able) to resort to physical violence. Hence, the ridiculously high levels of chutzpah in Israel.

Now here’s a great business idea for the enterprising British graduate . . .

Why volunteer as a “human shield” for Palestinians – Gaza is a horrible place to be after the comforts of university life – when you can live in Tel Aviv, making money saving parking spaces for beleaguered local drivers?

Cash considerations aside, you wouldn’t be helping save the homes of suicide bombers . . . and you’d stand a far better chance standing in the way of a 1989 Fiat Punto than a spanking new Caterpillar bulldozer.

Tomorrow

I took the day off work today. But I wish I hadn’t. It’s been a disaster. And it’s still not evening . . .

7:05 am: Dexxy and Stuey have slept enough. They decide that I have too. Little bastards.

7:15 am: Take them down for their walk. Huge clogs of soiled toilet paper are still spewing forth, excrementally, from the drain at the side of our building. It seems there cannot be a backside in Greater Tel Aviv left unrepresented.

7:55 am: Sit down for coffee at my “local”. I feel the women at the next table crowding me. Israelis do that. You are at the cash machine, and invariably ‘feel’ the person standing behind you. They have no concept of personal space over here. I pull a face, and feel I’ve made my point.

10:20 am: Moshe “the thieving plumber” (can there be a better example of a tautology?) comes to unblock the drain. He immediately says he’ll need an extra 100 shekels to clean up the toilet paper that has already flowed out of it (he must have thought, when providing his original quote, that we wouldn’t possibly want him removing so worthy a candidate for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art).

10:30 am: Moshe phones from downstairs. The festering cesspit greeting his arrival was obviously insufficient giveaway . . . he’ll need a further 100 shekels, because the blockage is “particularly bad”.

11 am: My induction to the gym. I joined on Friday, after my gay friend, Yossi, told me that I had to get my act together. Buying a new wardrobe and losing my keress [Hebrew for beer belly] was the gist of it. I am not doing the tight sleeveless vest and leather cap thing, so it was the gym or nothing. But I hate the places. The introductory circuit is thoroughly humiliating. As he watches my face get pinker with every pitiful exertion, the instructor downgrades the dumbbells from Macho Black to Girlie Pink. I want to tell Boris to f*ck off back to Uzbekistan. He informs me he’s the Israeli national wrestling champion. I decide not to.

1:30 pm: Head off with Dexx and Stu to MASH, to watch the satellite broadcast of Histon Town (it’s actually a village vs Leeds United, in the 2nd round of the FA Cup (the reason I took the day off).

1:55pm: Receive a text message from the pub’s owner, informing me that – in spite of the game having been advertised on the MASH website – it’s not being shown. When Roy, the most intelligent Tel Aviv White (no distinction in itself), phones to complain (I can become irrational during such conversations), he is informed that it is actually our fault for not having phoned to check yesterday. “Sorry” is not a word in the local consumer industry lexicon.

4 pm: My beloved Leeds United has lost, for the first time in its history, to a team from outside the Football League. And to a goal by a postman. If anybody knows where Histon is, will they please bloody tell me (what I do know is that it has a population of under 4,500, compared to the over 715,000 in Leeds).

4:10 pm: City, my last hope for rescuing the day, go one-nil down to United in the Manchester derby, which I am watching at the home of “Mad” Eddie (see The Tel Aviv Whites). Most Leeds fans would point Indian intelligence officers, searching for evil perpetrators, in the direction of Old Trafford rather than Pakistan.

5:16 pm: Injury time. City still losing. Eddie declares that he’ll let Dexxy and Stuey “do a Monica” on him – the “eat one’s hat” idiom obviously never reached Yorkshire – should City equalise.

5:17 pm: United’s goalkeeper makes a great point-blank save, denying City at the death. My last hope of a smile today vanishes. Eddie, just inches away from becoming “Mad, I Did Not Have Sex With Those Dogs” Eddie, breathes a huge sigh of relief (so do Dexxy and Stuey . . . they’d have had a good case for cruelty to animals).

On the bright side, I met a lovely woman yesterday evening, at the opening party for a new theatrical production of Oliver Twist (at least Fagin shouldn’t be portrayed too unkindly here), the latest project of legendary Israeli film director, Menachem Golan.

But I think I’ll call her tomorrow.

Gever Gever*: The Israeli Male

In most societies, for a man to be referred to by a woman as a chnun – the Hebrew for geek/nerd (rhymes with ‘fun’, in a silly northern English accent) – would generally be considered a grave and emasculating insult.

When my ex, Nurit, used to refer to me as such, regularly – sometimes in public, to amuse her friends (I liked that) – I would take it badly. No woman in the UK even nearly called me that. I mean I am just not. Okay, I wear glasses, and don’t do drugs or ride a Harley, and I call my mother a little too often . . . but I am into Dylan and punk and footie (I am sure I could think of more things, given time). But when the next woman (and the one after that) confirmed Nurit’s assessment, it made me start to think that perhaps I am just not the wild man that I had once considered myself.

It then started to dawn on me that, to these women, this was not an insult. Far from it. They cherished their chnun, a male who could show emotions other than through, inter alia, greeting another male with a bear-hug so tight that he feels his ribcage being crushed, or a handshake consisting of a vertical slap and then shake so strong that he has the sensation that his eyeballs are being forced out of their sockets.

Straight Israeli men also often greet each other with a kiss, something virtually unheard of where I come from. But such demonstrative displays – interestingly, performed most by the very types who I get into regular trouble for referring to as “monkeys” (“apes” for the even more challenged) – clearly don’t run very deep, perhaps being the remnant of some macho army bonding thing. And they tend to be the very limit of your average Israeli man’s emotional range.

Witnessing the behaviour of an Israeli male around an attractive female is somewhat akin to watching one of those National Geographic documentaries on baboon mating rituals in Gabon. Take the manager of ‘my’ café/kiosk, on Rothschild Boulevard, for instance. I have always found him nothing less than ungracious and thoroughly unpleasant. But, come an attractive woman, and he miraculously transforms into a gushing nincompoop.

For a general lack of etiquette, Israeli men have few peers. I will never forget having garinim (sunflower seeds) spat all over my lap for 90 minutes, by a Beitar (of course) football fan, during a match in Jerusalem. And the guy knew full well what he was doing (I decided to say shtum, however, rather than later have to recount words similar to those of Woody Allen’s character in Play It Again Sam: “Some guys were getting tough with Julie. I had to teach them a lesson. I snapped my chin down onto some guy’s fist and hit another one in the knee with my nose.”)

An interesting anthropological exercise involves observing groups of Israeli couples in a restaurant. In most other countries, there tends to be some cross-gender interaction. In such situations here, however, the males and females often chat amongst themselves, Goodfellas style, the former usually about football, sex, and/or – if they are a little more sophisticated – property (one often even sees tables with the men all seated at one end and the women all at the other). It’s as if the men are saying to their lady folk “You wouldn’t understand”. Of course, they are right – they wouldn’t – but Israeli men don’t even go through the pretence.

Whatever issues I have with Israeli women (and they are not few), the men here have a far better deal than the women. Moreover, the reason Israeli women behave in the way that they do (and I will get onto that, I hope, in the not too distant future) is because they have had to bear the brunt of Israeli men for all of their adult lives (though the men, in turn, can reasonably point to the fact that, unlike most normal teenagers – who, following high school, go off to party at university for three years – they are thrust into the IDF [but melchett mike is not about fairness]).

There is a popular notion that all Englishmen are like Hugh Grant (in his non-Sunset Boulevard persona). This is not true. While an Englishman might know how to hold his knife and fork correctly, place him in a football ground, in front of 22 men chasing a pig’s bladder, and you will soon see how civilised he is (this experiment produces even more interesting results if you first let him spend a couple of hours in a public house).

If two Englishmen have a disagreement, they will usually settle it by knocking the living daylights out of each other. Over here, on the other hand, fists are rarely raised. I once witnessed a road rage incident in downtown Jerusalem, which consisted of one man holding another in a headlock for an entire 15 minutes, not wanting to throw a punch. The scene took me back to Jewish Sunday league football in England, where squabbling opponents would trade ‘handbags’ (at twenty paces), not truly desiring to hurt one other.

Cut through all the bluff and posturing, therefore, and inside your average Israeli man you will ultimately find a “nice Jewish boy”.

* Gever is Hebrew for male. Israeli men commonly greet each other with this word, a more macho version of the English man (as in “Hey, man”). Gever Gever (see title) is an expression used, often sarcastically, to describe machismo.

A Dishonourable Knighthood: Why Shimon Shouldn’t Have Gone

During my first couple of years in Israel, I used to take my shoes to be repaired by a cobbler on Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road. The lovely old gentleman was born and grew up under the British Mandate for Palestine (1920-1948). When I first told him I was British, far from throwing my shoes back in my face, his eyes lit up as he reminisced, with no little nostalgia, how wonderfully polite the British soldiers were during that period, almost as if wishing them back.

This is not the reaction one would expect from a cold study of the history books. Even if the British could have explained away the 1939 White Paper – severely restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine – as political necessity, the turning back of ships packed with survivors of German death camps smacked of unimaginable cruelty.

But the deferential Israeli attitude to everything British prevails to this day. When the English football team and fans visited Tel Aviv for a European Championship qualifier, in March of last year, the authorities bedecked the Tel Aviv promenade in the flag of St. George, turning it into a Middle Eastern Southend-on-Sea. And the annual British Film Festival, at the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa Cinematheques, is more popular than any other.

But there is something more than a little patronising about Britain’s attitude towards Israel. And it defies logic.

Whatever his many detractors in Israel might say about him, no one can deny that President Shimon Peres has devoted much of his life to masterminding the survival of Israel and its citizens, through unremitting wars with Arab neighbours to daring operations like Entebbe (of which he is widely considered to have been the brains). The Queen and Prince Philip, on the other hand, have spent much of theirs gallivanting around the Commonwealth, gazing at natives’ bouncing dangly bits, in one “Bongo-Bongo Land” or another (let’s face it, I’m sure that’s how the wonderfully un-PC Prince would view them) .

Not a single member of the Royal Family has ever been on an official visit to Israel. During her 56-year reign, the Queen has undertaken over 250 official visits to more than 130 different countries. Her total abstinence from Israel is all the more remarkable when one considers her constitutional role as Head of the Church of England. Has no one ever informed her that some pretty heavy Christian sh*t has gone down here too?

A leaked email exchange between his aides, last year, suggested that Prince Charles – who has visited Israel once (for the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin) – was unlikely to do so again, as Israel might use any such visit to bolster its international image (God forbid). And the heir to the throne did not respond to a fresh invitation, last week, from President Peres – in town to receive an honorary knighthood from the Queen at Buckingham Palace – despite having said that it was his lifelong dream to visit the grave of his grandmother (Prince Philip’s mother), on the Mount of Olives (I suppose that cash flow could be an issue for the Prince, in these recessionary times).

In view, especially, of Britain’s deep, problematic involvement in the history of this Land (the effects of which are still felt here), the Royal reticence towards Israel does the Family a disservice and Israel a dishonour.

With the man’s penchant for international recognition, it was never going to happen, but President Peres should have politely declined this dishonourable knighthood.

No One Likes Us: Why We Shouldn’t Care

“No one likes us, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care . . .”

So sing fans of Millwall Football Club, in South East London, who, yes, it is true, no one likes. If they weren’t such scum, however, there would be something rather admirable about their attitude . . . an attitude I share when it comes to being Jewish and a Zionist (still).

I often talk to my cousin on the phone in the mornings, to alleviate the tedium of my drive to work (though the monotony is often broken anyway by some Israeli nutter, holding his mobile in one hand and a ciggie in the other, who – with one leg on the dashboard, and without indicating – swerves across three lanes of traffic in one fell swoop). Marc still listens to the BBC Wind-up Service on his way to work, and never ceases to be antagonised by the anti-Israel, Islamophilic propaganda served up most mornings (since when did the average ‘Beeb’ listener become so interested in documentaries about, inter alia, lesbian suicide bombers in Aden?)

My policy has long been not to listen to, or read, such media. It always just brought me down. Their purveyors are not going to change. Nor am I. And nor are most of the other listeners to and readers of the BBC Wind-up Service and The Guardian, etc, who do so precisely because such media reinforce and legitimise (or so they think) their bitter, warped, Jew-hating – oft cunningly veiled as mere Israel-hating (as if that is okay) – view of the world. Quite frankly (and apologies to my mother’s friends, some of whom I believe read this blog), I feel that – now that I am living in Israel – they can all go and f*ck themselves (though they could have done so before, too).

Israel has to put its own interests first. It is dog-eat-dog in this (mental) part of the world. And Israel cannot always afford to worry about what everyone else thinks – never mind some sex-starved single-mother in Stoke Newington, who just happens to have taken a dislike to those weirdos in their black gabardines “down Woolworths” – before acting (poisonous Persian dwarf in your M&S jacket [see Virginal Meanderings], take note).

Jews know only too well what happens when they wait for the world to act. And we have seen, since then, what we can do when forced, and in a position, to take care of ourselves. But, like Israelis and their tea, the world doesn’t like its Jews too strong.

We shouldn’t give a hoot, therefore, about Ken “you are just like a concentration camp guard” Livingstone, George “I never took a penny from Saddam” Galloway, David “From Toe Job to No Job” Mellor, or any of their ilk. I wear it as a badge of honour that such miscreants would not appear to be particularly fond of us.

You see . . . Leeds and Millwall fans can find common ground, after all.

Noo Joysey, you ain’t seen nuttin’

Ra’anana’s answer to Tony Soprano was “whacked” in broad daylight yesterday afternoon, when a bomb exploded in his car as he was driving along a busy Tel Aviv street. He had just left a court hearing involving two of his sons, wearing a trilby à la Jack “The Hat” McVitie (the 1960s London mobster whose murder led to the downfall of the notorious Kray twins).

 Yaakov Alperon, aka “Don Alperon”, 54, was reputedly (I never had the pleasure) “boss” of Israel’s third largest “family”. A number of attempts had been made on his life, including a grenade attack on his home in 2001 and another car bombing in 2003. He was thought to be battling with the rival Abergil and Abutbul families over bottle recycling (a racket worth five million Dollars a year), and had an ongoing feud with another gangster, Amir Mulner, dating back to a 2006 arbitration summit gone awry – knives and guns were drawn, and Mulner emerged with a stab wound to the neck, widely attributed to Alperon.

Yesterday’s incident is one of numerous mafia-related to make the headlines in Israel this year. In June, Yoram Haham, a well-known criminal defence lawyer, was also blown up in his car in the heart of Tel Aviv. In July, a 31-year old woman was shot dead in front of her husband and two young children on Bat Yam beach, after being caught in the crossfire of a failed mob hit. And in September, in Netanya – very popular with English émigrés, seeking a peaceful retirement by the sea – local “boss”, Charlie Abutbul, was shot and critically injured in a café.

Repeated references to the Almighty, by Alperon’s brother on yesterday’s evening news, had me thinking of the monologue of Jules, Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Pulp Fiction, before he carried out an execution: “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Many of our local mafioso come from traditional north African families. One cannot help but wonder whether some rabbis, if not condoning their followers’ activities, turn a blind eye to them, in return for some personal or communal sweetener. Perhaps that is why we regularly hear such criminals invoking God – and, most nauseautingly, donning skullcaps for court appearances – whilst pursuing the most un-Godly of activities.

Unlike in The Sopranos, where one often even finds oneself sympathising with the characters (I must admit to my eyes welling up when Pussy got “whacked”), the local, non-fictitious variety inspire no such feelings of warmth – again, in the words of Jules, “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.”

Alperon’s nephew was less ambiguous on this morning’s news, than his uncle had been yesterday evening: “If he is not punished from Above, he will be punished by other means. We’ll find out who did it. It’s only a matter of time.”

Three innocent bystanders – including a 13-year old standing at a bus stop – were injured in yesterday’s blast. And even anti-tank missiles have been a favoured weapon of mob assassins in the past. So, sit tight everyone, while all hell breaks loose.

Oh, it’s never boring in Israel.

Orgies are a Sin: Big Brother Keeps Kosher

It’s official: Israel’s Big Brother is kosher, after all. The news follows the censorship of a housemate’s account of a bet he once made on his chances of persuading a woman to participate in group sex.

Ha’Ach Ha’Gadol, Israel’s version of the international reality TV show, has provoked wide public debate about the dumbing-down of broadcasting standards here. Whilst undeniable drivel, aimed at the lowest common denominator, it can – without care – become strangely addictive (a telly-addict friend of mine, Liat, was staying with me on the inaugural evening, back in September . . . so it is her fault!) One (first) date even insisted that we sit opposite the bar’s television so that she wouldn’t miss anything.

The original 16 housemates were obviously hand-picked with some care. One admitted to being very homophobic and racist (but knew that women couldn’t resist him), whilst another boasted about being an evil bitch. Thankfully, both were promptly evicted. With most of the interesting (however contemptible) characters gone, though, the show’s producers were recently forced to draft in four new faces, much to the consternation of many hardcore followers, who (rightly) felt cheated.

Yossi Bublil, the 54-year old at the centre of the current group sex controversy – and who many believe to be the evolutionary ‘Missing Link’ – has become something of a trash-cultural icon in Israel. He is in the house with his daughter, Einav, who sometimes makes former UK Big Brother ‘star’ Jade Goody – she of the famous “They were trying to use me as an escape goat” line (forcing her former school to declare that she was not a typical pupil) – appear refined.

To my mind, the only real reason to watch Ha’Ach Ha’Gadol is Ranin Boulos, the only Arab housemate (she is Christian), who gives the lie to the belief that all Arab women look like Hanan Ashrawi. If only they had stapled her lips together before letting her in. She cried and complained to Big Brother about the recital of Friday evening Kiddush in the house – this must have come as a genuine shock to her . . . after volunteering to share a dwelling with 15 Jews. She then clearly fell for an(other) arrogant tosser in the house – sobbing uncontrollably when he was promptly tossed out – which should add interest to her eventual reunion with her Arab boyfriend (she might be well-advised to have her brothers present).

Apart from there being nothing illegal about asking a woman to participate in group sex (she apparently declined), the banning of the offending clip from Channel 2’s highlights package and YouTube – it had been posted by a viewer of the live, round-the-clock broadcast (on Channel 20) – smacks of gross hypocrisy, when the raison d’être of Ha’Ach Ha’Gadol is titillation. The feigned moral outrage doesn’t fool anyone, when the show’s producers must be rubbing their hands with glee at the increased publicity and revenues Bublil’s revelations will no doubt earn them.

Using Yitzhak: The Rabin Trade

Last week witnessed a host of events and ceremonies, across the country, marking the 13th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

An estimated 100,000 attended the main rally on Saturday evening, in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, the site of Rabin’s murder (at the hands of Yigal Amir on 4 November 1995). A friend asked me to accompany her. But I refused. I rarely attend such rallies. I tried explaining myself. But, other than telling her what she already knows (that I am contrary), I couldn’t.

The state memorial, on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl on Monday, however, reminded me exactly why – because they have been hijacked by too many opportunists and self-publicists, who milk the ‘Rabin brand’ for every drop of benefit it can provide their own agendas and careers.

The main culprit this year (you may not be surprised to hear) was Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. With his undistinguished tenure drawing to a close, and embroiled in allegations of corruption, he chose the memorial to show himself as a peace-loving visionary, following in the Oslo footsteps of Rabin.

Olmert has had three years to work on realising his claimed vision – of an Israel back at its 1967 borders, with a divided Jerusalem as its capital – but only now, as a ‘lame duck’, is he espousing it, thus burdening his successor in the Kadimah party (and also perhaps as Prime Minister), Tzipi Livni, with an unreasonable weight of expectation. Whether out of spite (Olmert and Livni are not best pals these days), or in an attempt to go down in history as a visionary rather than a criminal, only he knows.

Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, Livni’s closest rival for the top job, used the special Knesset memorial session following the state one to speak out against incitement. Yes, the very same ‘Bibi’ who took part in right-wing demonstrations – in which Rabin was denounced as a traitor, and portrayed in SS uniform (though Netanyahu distanced himself from both) – just a month before the assassination.

But it is not just Israel’s right that uses Yitzhak. Leftists continually prescribe the correct path for the country based on what Rabin would have wanted. No one knows, however, how things might have turned out were he still with us. Rabin himself went through so many transformations that it is not inconceivable that he might have returned, from the Rabin of the Oslo Accords, to his former hawkish self – as Defence Minister, he was quoted as saying “We will break their [the Palestinians’] bones” – had suicide bombers struck with as much murderous ferocity during his lifetime as they did after his death.

There are also a host of musicians who enjoy the publicity that the Rabin Square rally, in particular, earns them (though once can hardly blame them for accepting such an opportunity). Even if not entirely unsavoury, however, there is very little truly ‘Rabinesque’ about these events either, and I, for one, prefer to stay away.

Left-wing commentator and former politician,Yossi Sarid, put it far more eloquently than I ever could, in this weekend’s Ha’aretz: “Poor Yitzhak Rabin, whose memory was desecrated this week: Who hasn’t ripped off one of his limbs, amputated an arm or a leg of his heritage, and scurried off to his lair to gnaw on it? Suddenly, they were all his sons, all of them are the heirs to his way.”

The Tired End of the Zionist Dream?

What the pihuck (Hebrew for yawn) is this country coming to? A President accused of rape, a Prime Minister under investigation for bribery, a Deputy Prime Minister convicted of forcing his tongue down a female soldier’s throat, a Finance Minister accused of massive embezzlement, and now this . . . a soldier caught yawning.

The shocking story, IDF soldier jailed for yawning during Rabin memorial service, which first hit the headlines yesterday, has taken the country by storm. Does it signal the true end of the Zionist dream, and everything we (well, not me) have fought for?

Most right-thinking people are up in arms that the unnamed offender has been sentenced to 21 days in a military jail. Only three weeks? For a crime involving moral turpitude, and one that can only undermine the very fabric and foundations of Israeli society and democracy?

Many are advocating that the offender’s mother should join him in prison, after claiming that her son was not disrespectful, but tired, and that yawning is an uncontrollable physical act. My God, why would a young man possibly need to yawn? And a soldier at that?

Thankfully, the young blighter wasn’t caught picking his nose or breaking wind, for which surely only a life sentence (with certain exceptions, Israel abolished the death penalty in 1954) would have sufficed.