Blowin’ in the Washington Wind

So, the peace talks are under way. But don’t hold your breath . . .

No one in Israel – not even his inner cabinet, by all accounts – has a clue what Benjamin Netanyahu will offer the Palestinians. Nor about his red lines.

Mahmoud Abbas, on the other hand, has a mandate from his family and herd of goats (there is, it is alleged, some overlap). One thing is for sure, however: nothing he agrees with “Bibi” will be accepted by his delightful Islamofascist brethren in Gaza.

And under the ground rest four more innocents . . . though, such is the demonization of the settler, these days, that Israel’s supposed “cultural elite” probably don’t even regard them as such.

On Monday, the day before the drive-by shooting, 150 left-wing academics, artists and writers – including A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and David Grossman – signed a petition in support of actors who are refusing to appear in a new cultural centre in the West Bank settlement of Ariel (Haaretz article).

Now, I am not a supporter of the settlements and believe that all but the largest (of which Ariel is one) of them should – and, eventually, will – be evacuated (following, unlike in Gaza, a formal agreement). And I understand the reluctance, on ideological grounds, of left-wing artists to appear in them.

What unites the signatories to this petition, however, is the familiar arrogance of Israel’s left-wing intelligentsia, who consider their opinions of supreme importance in and to the Israeli body politic. This “cultural elite” – the large majority of which populates the swankiest suburbs of north Tel Aviv and believes, no less than the most fanatic of settlers, that it defines what makes a good and moral Zionist/Israeli – thoroughly repulses me. Most of its members, it seems to me, would sell this country and even their own mothers in the name of their perverse, potentially suicidal notions of liberalism. Indeed, for an honest, intuitive and untainted sense of right and wrong, I would sooner turn to the stallholders in the Carmel Market.

Moreover, I cannot help but wonder whether this self-righteous collection of luvvies, professors and general ponces is not responsible for, or has not at least contributed to, making the settler – through said constant demonization – a legitimate target in the eyes of our enemies.

Driving to the settlement of Efrat (in the Etzion bloc, 15 minutes from the scene of Tuesday’s murders) last Friday – on winding, hilly, unlit roads, past Palestinian villages whose donkeys would emerge, without warning, from out of the night – was a most unnerving experience. Indeed, my heart seemed to be racing as fast as the occasional vehicle, with green-on-white (Palestinian) plates, that sped past.

“There have been no drive-by shootings here for years,” my friend’s son attempted to reassure me upon my arrival, as I tried to regain my cool.

A mere four days later, however, that period of quiet was over.

And, regrettably, I hold out little hope for Washington.

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike/

I love my old TV: an Israeli populace in dire straits

There is something more than a little surreal about going to pick up a gas mask. And I have been putting off the task for some time now, in spite of regular reminders by post and having been sufficiently aware of the possibility of a heavy, sustained attack on Israel – and Tel Aviv especially – to have blogged about it every few months (most recently in Getting ready to rock ‘n’ roll with Iran and Reflections on Armageddon).            

Gas mask graffiti: man reading sports pages (Rabin Square, Tel Aviv)

Fortunately, it is not in the Israeli “live for today” constitution to lose sleep over such an eventuality, and many of the natives won’t even bother to collect their masks – or “individual protection kits”, to give them their official, Orwellian name – as they consider them a waste of time (and they probably are).             

My friend Itzik, on the other hand, has been preoccupied with the spectre of war for months now. Meeting another friend, an IDF intelligence officer, for the first time recently, Itzik spent the entire evening trying to extract hints as to when he should book his outbound flight. And, ever since discovering my source, Itzik has regularly been enquiring as to whether I have “heard anything”. I, of course, now delight in terrorising him: “Where are you?” I’ll fire as he answers his phone. “How soon can you be at Ben Gurion (Airport)?”             

The recent automated telephone reminders – supplementing the postal ones – to pick up gas masks, however, have started to make me think that something really may be up . . . and imminent.             

Collecting my prehistoric CRT (cathode ray tube) television from repair – show me the Polish Jew who can easily dispose of something that once cost him several hundred pounds! – last week, the workshop owner mentioned that he was born in Iran. Instantly forgetting the dilemma of whether I should leave him the great hulk of mid-nineties Japanese engineering and keep the three hundred shekels in my pocket (an option he offered), I asked Assi whether he thought that Ahmadinejad was “just a big talker”.             

I was looking, I think, for reassurance, from a man with some understanding of the Iranian psyche. I immediately wished, however, that I had stayed shtum.             

“Oh no,” replied Assi confidently (in a now unmistakable Persian accent), “it’s gonna go crazy here . . . and before the chagim (Jewish high holidays, beginning in the middle of next week). If you have got somewhere to go . . . go!”             

The nonchalance with which the TV repair man turned doomsayer delivered his prediction made it no less shocking.

I attempted to calm myself with the recollection that this was the very same man who had informed me, just a few days earlier, that old tellies display a far better quality of picture than state-of-the-art TVs.      

This time, however, Assi had nothing to sell.       

“So why don’t you go?” I retorted.             

“Where am I going to go with my kids? Anyway, I haven’t got the money.”             

I immediately handed over the three hundred shekels and somehow squeezed the giant Sony Trinitron back onto my back seat. And, by the time I had schlepped it back up to my second floor flat, I was determined to collect that gas mask once and for all.             

The postal reminder listed the nearest pickup point to be my local ACE DIY/home improvement store – a kind of B&Q with attitude – which somehow added to the surrealism of the exercise:    

“A pack of double ‘A’ Energizer batteries, some cheap tumblers, a plastic garden chair . . . oh yes, and a gas mask, please, in case of biological or chemical attack.” 

Gas mask distribution point, Ramat Gan

Two young frechot sitting at the rear of the store were checking teudot zehut (ID cards) and handing out the cardboard boxes. And there was a sample mask, in its constituent parts, on the desk in front of them.      

Seeing as I had never worn one – I was at university, in England, when they were last used, during the first Gulf War – and that the girls had informed me that opening the box is prohibited (before you absolutely have to, I interpolated), I enquired as to whether they would be kind enough to show me how. The twin gazes of incredulity, however, that greeted my request – reasonable, I thought, in the circumstances – told me that they had no intention of allowing their discussion of what is new in frecha fashion, or of which Avi, Benny or Yossi had abused them the previous evening, to be interrupted. I scuttled off home.             

Oddly enough, after the danger to those near and dear, the thought that most haunts me about Israel coming under heavy and prolonged attack is not of the ignoble mass party that will undoubtedly break out right across the knuckle-dragging Islamic world, but rather of the sickening glee that it will also bring to the Kaufmans, Galloways and Finkelsteins, not to mention the poisonous little Gerts, of the rest of it.             

Back in Sheinkin, I treated myself to a comfort sabich and chips. I had needed something rather more substantial than the information, provided by Assi, that “many Iranians secretly listen to Israel Radio English news”.             

David, a Welshman, still here some twenty years after meeting an Israeli girl in a Camden Town pub, joined me.             

“Do you think about it much?” I asked him, my head still in gas masks.             

“There’s not much to think about,” replied David. “You either stay or you go. And I’m not going.”             

And, after investing fifty-odd quid in that old telly, nor am I . . . but will – like a good Polish boy – be seeing out Assi’s three-month guarantee, at the very least!     

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

Taking the SMS: Avi the Texting Masseur

Just when you think that the chutzpah can’t get any worse, the Israeli will usually surprise you . . .

During a massage, last week, in her holiday home in Herzliya Pituach – the hot destination, these days, for British “Deckchair Zionists” – my friend Donna’s blissful indulgence was intermittently disturbed by a faint clicking sound.

She ignored it.

Opening her eyes, however, towards the end of the one-hour session, Donna caught her masseur, Avi, with one hand on her foot and the other typing a text (SMS) message on his mobile phone.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I would say that a masseur on 300 shekels (50 British pounds) an hour can reasonably be expected to use both hands!

The incident reminded me of a university flatmate whose girlfriend, in the middle of doing something to him that he could not do to himself – would we males ever leave the house? – looked up to find him channel-hopping with the TV remote. (In his defence, there was footie on the box . . . but she gave him a mouthful anyway. The cheeky chappie, meanwhile, eventually migrated to his natural habitat . . . Israel.)

Such chutzpadik multitasking was also exhibited by an Israeli first date of mine who, on arrival at the pretty garden café handpicked by me – and having evidently resolved that I was not as attractive as I considered her – insisted on sitting inside, so that she would not miss any of the goings-on in the Israeli Big Brother house.

Indeed, the Israeli is a multitasker nonpareil, who can, for instance, smoke, devour garinim (sunflower seeds) and cuff the kids and/or missus . . . all while driving at excess speed, with one foot on the dashboard, cursing down his mobile and gesticulating at other road users.

While now – having lived here for over ten years – conditioned to Israeli chutzpah (and not averse to dishing out some of my own when required), I am also far less likely to put up with it . . .

Overhearing, in my local hummus place on Sheinkin, that I was flying back to London the following morning, an Israeli woman who I know from the area enquired whether I would mind taking something for her son, sojourning in Wood Green (of all places).

“Of course not,” I foolishly replied.

The woman scuttled away, returning a quarter of an hour later not with the latest Amos Oz novel or Arik Einstein disc, but with a plastic bag – from the makolet (supermarket) over the road – weighing several kilos and bursting with family-sized bottles of Osem tomato ketchup.

“He is used to it,” she declared, as if that should have been of interest to me.

Some years earlier, I would have been so taken aback by such chutzpah that my only reaction would have been momentary paralysis, an awkward smile, and a hasty unpacking of my suitcase to accommodate the condimentally-challenged nincompoops. And I may even have thanked her for selecting me for the honour.

But no longer.

“I’m not taking that,” I laughed, almost contemptuously. “I am already overweight.” I wasn’t. “Anyway, what’s wrong with Heinz?!”

What could she say? She had been outchutzpah’d.

You see, it is just that on encountering foreign accents – usually accompanied by indications of (relative) meekness – many of the natives see a flashing “Freier!” (sucker) sign.

And not to be taken advantage of here, one, regrettably, must become like them.

Avi “the Texting Masseur” no doubt calculated that – unlike his Israeli clients – Donna would not mind him sending SMS messages while he was supposed to be giving her a massage . . . and that, even if she did, the English lady would not say a word.

And he was, at least, half right.

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

World Trade Center set for suicide bomber memorial

From today’s Independent . . .

While the controversy over plans to build an Islamic center and mosque just two blocks away from Ground Zero continues, other plans have come to light for a monument to shahids or fedayeen – i.e., suicide bombers and ‘martyrs’ – on the very site of their most dastardly act: the World Trade Center.

The Allahu Akbar Foundation wants to erect the memorial – comprising three figures: Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, together with an “unknown martyr” (with wires hanging out of his clothing and his thumb on a switch) – at the entrance to 1 World Trade Center (due for completion in 2013).

The artist: Fuqn-Youslus, in her Gaza City home

The figures, made from scrap metal garnered from the twisted wreckage of Israeli buses, took the celebrated Palestinian artist, Miwurqs Fuqn-Youslus, over two days to complete.

“It would have taken even less,” said Fuqn-Youslus from her home (or, at least, what’s left of it) in Gaza City, “but there is a shortage of decent quality niqabs (head coverings) in the shuk as a result of the Israeli blockade. My current one is not a good fit, and the slit keeps riding over my eyes while I work! Oh yes, and there is also the matter of my one arm . . .” (Hamas officials amputated Fuqn-Youslus’s right arm at the elbow after she refused her husband sex without good cause).

The initial reaction of New Yorkers, however, to the latest plans – including of families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks – has been far from enthusiastic.

“Why don’t they just spit on the graves of the three thousand people who were murdered here?” said the father of one such victim, a New York firefighter.

The founder of The Allahu Akbar Foundation, however, Aamer Zileeh-Qunt, can’t see what all the fuss is about.

“We are hearing a lot of propaganda and lies against Muslims – this monument commemorates good men and is not disrespectful in any way,” said Mr. Zileeh-Qunt from his hideout in a remote region of Pakistan. “And it is not just a memorial to martyrs, but also to those who wanted to be but, for example, were too thick to pass the flying course or who, like my brother Abu Hamza in Belmarsh (prison), could not follow the simple instructions in their jihadi bomb-making manuals.”

Various American Reform rabbis have given their support to the planned monument, as has the Jewish lobbying group J Street.

And the reaction in Britain has also been supportive, with Member of Parliament Gerald Kaufman going so far as to claim that opposition to the memorial constitutes an insult to the memory of his late grandmother.

“As a Jew,” declared Mr. Kaufman from outside his Regent’s Park home (that of the dodgy expenses claim), “I am ashamed that some of my coreligionists are behind this ignoble attempt to derail what is, after all, an entirely innocent monument. My grandmother, who was murdered by the Nazis, died in vain if Manhattanites will not allow this perfectly respectable memorial.”

Gorgeous Bhoy: George Galloway ex-MP

Speaking from his bench outside Kings Cross Station, George Galloway, also once a Member of Parliament, claimed that “the tentacles of Zionism are behind this outrageous opposition. It is a lovely work, and my auld mate Saddam, zichrono livrocha, would have been all for it!”

Meanwhile, artsy UK human rights activists Ken Loach, Alexei Sayle and Annie Lennox, together with career Jew-baiter Ken Livingstone, have organised a rally in support of the proposed monument – and to protest against what they have labelled “an undemocratic, Islamophobic provocation” by its opponents – in Hyde Park, this Sunday.

Following the death of the regular speaker at such rallies, playwright Harold Pinter, the organisers are flying in Hollywood film director Oliver Stone, whose recent remarks, they say, make him the natural heir to Pinter’s rally stage.

American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist and political activist, Noam Chomsky, will also traverse the Atlantic specially for the rally.

“My Jewishness,” said Professor Chomsky from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “together with the fact that no one is bright enough to understand a word of what I am on about, makes my opinion on US government policy vis-à-vis Zionism, the Palestinians and Islam practically unimpeachable.”

The reaction of the Islamic world, too, to opposition to the planned monument has been one of anger. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, between dodging “stray firecrackers”, proclaimed that “the Zionists’ days are numbered”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was unavailable for comment, but a government spokesman in Ankara, Aylyket Ubdibüm, said that Mr. Erdoğan would “go along with the Iranian response . . . whatever that may be.”

And, emerging from his Beirut bunker in a cunning “bandit” disguise, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah – who denied recent media reports that he and a certain extremist rabbi residing in Stamford Hill may be distant cousins – again threatened Tel Aviv.

“We have missiles capable even of reaching melchett mike,” declared Nasrallah. “This Zionist piss-taker should enjoy his four dogs while Allah allows him.”

Cunning disguise: Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, on a Beirut street

Discrimination of a Singular Kind: A Rant

As I boarded the vessel, I came under immediate attack.

But, unlike that suffered by IDF naval commandos a couple of months ago, this assault was both innocent and purely verbal. It was, however, no less unwelcome.

“This is Mike. He is 42, and looking for a wife.”

This is how my (with) friend(s like these), Donna, introduced me to the several middle-aged women seated with her at the rear of the boat, in Herzliya Pituach marina, last Tuesday afternoon.

And stern (back of a boat, geddit?!) was what I was. Indeed, if I was not so used to the way that so many married people relate to us single folk, a second flotilla incident may have been unavoidable. But shrugging off, rather than reacting to, Donna’s introduction (she is, after all, an ex-Hasmo girl), I extended a cheery greeting to my fellow sailors and thanked Donna for prompting me to turn my attention to a matter to which I had alluded in an earlier post to melchett mike, i.e., the very different treatment given by certain married people to their single friends, and especially the seeming assumption that the love and private lives of those friends (and not just those who write about them on their blogs!) are fair and public game.

I mean, it is hard to imagine a reaction as restrained as mine, above, were we singles to give our married friends a taste of their own medicine and to start introducing them in an equally uninhibited and intrusive manner:

“This is Josh and Becky. Don’t be fooled by the show – they are utterly miserable. Josh is looking for fun with a woman for whom rigor mortis has not yet set in . . . while Becky is just longing to be touched by any woman.”

Why is it that those married people (and it is not all of them) seem to forget everything that they know about you, their single friend – what you are like, what you do, what you have achieved . . . in short, who you are – but, instead, reduce you to the fact that you have, as yet, always opted for “I won’t”?

Even ignoring the occasional (and always hilarious) gay jibes, such marrieds seem to have all kinds of misconceptions about their single friends: That you somehow won’t be able to cope at a meal out or dinner party with their other, married friends. And, if you do receive an invitation, it will usually be as an afterthought, rather than the advance one received by the other, ‘normal’ guests (so a fellow ex-Hasmo would, at the end of Saturday morning synagogue, invariably invite me back for lunch with other, married ex-classmates who had had the date in their diaries for weeks; I never went). Then, of course, there are the weddings and bar mitzvahs where you get seated at the “sad singles” (with whom you have nothing else in common) table, rather than with your married friends.

But, then, it is not unusual for those same married couples – especially, the male halves – to show inordinate interest in all the gory details of your love life . . . which causes me to wonder whether they actually live vicariously through us.

I mean, of course, most of us singles would love to find our soul mate, procreate (as opposed to merely copulate), and live happily ever after. But, believe it or not, many of us are also pretty complete individuals, who – until we find that person – are quite content with the advantages, and they are not negligible (see previous brackets), that we currently enjoy.

Indeed, if there is a Gay Pride Parade, then why not a Single one?!

Towards the end of our sail, I asked Donna (whom, incidentally, I love dearly) about a guy on the catamaran whom I had not yet met (though I was determined to introduce myself, this time). And I soon got talking to Paul – “Divorced. Looking.” was Donna’s complete profile of him – who told me that the next time he starts thinking about marriage, he will instead (to save on lawyers’ fees) just find someone he dislikes and buy her a house . . .

Which guaranteed that if I was “looking for a wife” when I got on the boat, I certainly was not as I got off.

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

If I were a Jewish man: the Arab fiddler on the roof

The rape (by deception) conviction, last month, of an East Jerusalem Arab who posed as a love-seeking Jewish bachelor in order to get into the knickers of an Israeli Jewess prompted me to recall some of the more spurious yarns I have spun, over the years, to get my wicked way.

One summer, for instance, on a road trip across the US (during our break from Manchester University), I scored – with a Smiths-obsessed frat girl – with the whopper that Morrissey was our next door neighbour (a claim to fame which left her with no choice).   

In fact, the absolute ludicrousness of both the recent conviction and the 18-month prison term (appealed) handed down to Sabbar Kashur – a married, 30-year old, father-of-two who introduced himself to the complainant as “Dudu”, an Israeli nickname – caused me to do the unprecedented (forbidden?) and concur with Haaretz’s Gideon Levy: see He impersonated a human.   

“If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship,” ruled Jerusalem District Court Judge Zvi Segal, “she would not have cooperated.” 

After approaching Kashur as he exited a grocery store in the capital, that fateful midday in September 2008, the “serious romantic” Israeli – in her late twenties – clearly did not need an awful lot of persuading to accompany “Dudu” for a quickie on a nearby roof (it is not only the Tel Avivit, it would seem, who possesses the Subtle Art of Seduction).   

Sabbar “Dudu” Kashur in his East Jerusalem home

And Kashur maintains that he “didn’t pretend” anything. “I said my name is Dudu because that’s how everybody knows me. My wife even calls me that.” (The penny perhaps dropped for our nice, naive yiddishe girl with Kashur’s cry, at the height of passion, of “Allahu akbar!” Okay, I made that bit up.)

The court then heard that Kashur – who has been under house arrest ever since – departed the scene without waiting for his Jewish princess to get dressed. 

But what exactly was he expected to do? To hold her for a few minutes and, looking into her eyes, tell her that she was his best first-date bunk up since his morning coffee break? 

“The court is obliged,” continued Judge Segal, “to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls.”   

While Kashur’s oral physiology and abilities are not matters about which I care to speculate, I suspect that his ‘victim’ may not have been quite as chaste as Judge Segal would have us believe. “Sanctity of bodies and souls,” indeed!   

“When the very basis of trust between human beings drops, especially when the matters at hand are so intimate, sensitive and fateful, the court is required to stand firmly at the side of the victims,” concluded Judge Segal, “otherwise, they will be used, manipulated and misled.”   

“Intimate” and “sensitive”?! Shagging a complete stranger on a roof?! 

No. The only thing that “drop[ped]” in this case was a pair of loose-fitting knickers (if, indeed, there were any to begin with). And, regarding our nice, virtuous Jewish meydl, the words that spring to mind are “gagging for it”.   

One thing is for sure: If an Israeli male had nailed an Arab woman by telling her that he was a Muslim, there would have been no case to answer (except, of course, with her brothers). Indeed, this whole sorry affair is an uncomfortable reminder of certain 1935 racial purity laws. And just when one thought it impossible for Israel’s world image to sink any lower.   

Anyway, if you happen to be reading this, you poor innocent thing: I really am a Jewish bachelor . . . and like nothing more than a bit of “serious” rooftop “romance”. 

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

Time for the Hurndalls to stop their sniping

So, Taysir Hayb will be a free man next month. The IDF Sergeant, found guilty of manslaughter after shooting British “peace activist” Tom Hurndall in 2003, is to be released after serving five years of his eight-year sentence.

But the Hurndall family’s “anger and shock” at Monday’s announcement is not, says Sophie Hurndall, Tom’s sister, directed at the soldier who fired the bullet, but rather at the IDF and Israel as a whole: “To be honest, it’s about the system. Not the man himself. This man who shot Tom was the same age as him. He is both the victim and the killer. He is part of a system that proactively encouraged soldiers to target civilians.”

That is bollocks, Ms. Hurndall (as anyone who has served in the IDF can testify).

I was back in England at the time of the shooting of Tom Hurndall (right), in the Gaza town of Rafah, at the height of the Second Intifada, in April 2003. I was also there throughout his nine-month coma, until his death, aged just 22.

And, during the Hurndall family’s protracted UK media campaign against Israel, I was continually forced to question my capacity for empathy for feeling so little about their obvious (and natural) suffering. In fact, the only thing that the Hurndalls’ campaign did move me to do – although, in the end, I didn’t (for which I am now glad) – was to drop a letter into their north London home (close to mine), with my condolences, but also telling them that Tom had absolutely no business being there in the first place.

And this week’s comments by Sophie Hurndall – who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians – have only served to remind me of just how I felt (or, rather, didn’t) seven years ago. No, my heart has not softened with the years.

While I, of course, take no joy in the tragic death of Tom Hurndall, the time has come for his family to take a good look at themselves, too, and to ask certain painful questions about the decisions and actions of their son and brother, and about how they may have influenced or prevented them:

• What right did Tom Hurndall have to interfere with IDF operations – his declared goal was to blockade tank patrols – at the height of the Second Intifada, in the then war zone of Gaza?
• Did he possess any comprehension whatsoever as to the entirely justified purpose of those operations (i.e., to protect Israeli citizens)? Or did he, maybe, view Hamas and Islamic Jihad as some kind of benevolent presence that Israel could simply ignore? Perhaps, for him, Jewish lives – as opposed to Palestinian ones – were just unimportant?
• Why did he choose to be a “peace activist” in the only democracy – or, at least, the only country that can reasonably claim to be one (as even Israel’s enemies could not deny) – in the entire Middle East? Why not in one of the many Islamofascist, or other, tyrannies the world over?
• And, anyway, as a self-proclaimed “human shield” – purportedly of children (endangered only because they themselves are used as such by Palestinian militants) – did Hurndall not succeed in his stated purpose?

Without in any way condoning the actions of Sergeant Hayb (right), to whose intent only he was privy, one wonders how long Tom Hurndall would have survived in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, attempting to impede the operations of British or American forces there: How long would it have taken before an irate – or, perhaps, ever so slightly unhinged – squaddy,  in the “pressure cooker” of a war zone (which Gaza was no less), thought “F*ck this! I have had quite enough of this interfering little prick”?

To me, Tom Hurndall – like Rachel Corrie just before him – is not the hero that he is so often portrayed to be. He was, rather, a very misguided young man, appearing to suffer from the misapprehension – even more popular these days, and shared by his family – that Israel’s war against Islamofascism is a gratuitous rather than strictly necessary one, and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants are, somehow, not really dangerous.

“We have had to deal with cover-ups and lies and a total lack of accountability throughout, and this is in line with that – it’s symptomatic,” continued Sophie Hurndall on Monday.

Bollocks, once again.

Sergeant Hayb was tried and convicted (if following several months of pressure from the Hurndalls). Would Tom Hurndall’s death in Iraq or Afghanistan (as described above) have resulted in a similar outcome? I very much doubt it. And under an Islamofascist dictatorship, such as the one Hamas is establishing in Gaza, the Hurndalls would still be trying to discover how and why their son ‘disappeared’, and whether he is still alive . . . while, all the time, his dismembered body was lying at the bottom of some well.

Of course, the fact that Sergeant Hayb is a Bedouin rather than a Jew has all been rather inconvenient for the Hurndalls, forcing them to modulate their rhetoric to the media over the past seven years.

On the other hand, the Jewish state is a much larger, easier, and – in these dark days – popular target than the particular motivations and reactions of a 20-year old, non-Jewish soldier.

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

In the Rudest of Health (The Israeli, Part III)

“You’ve got too much to say!”

So North-West London’s most famous French teacher would often chide his loquacious (he preferred “yapping”) pupils.

And not always having to say something – especially if, as my parents would remind me, that “something” is not worth saying – is an English attitude that the Israeli would do well to consider. Indeed, while silence and Jerusalem may both be golden, only one of them is “blue and white” too (for the time being, at least).

As I have documented on these pages (here, here and here), most Israelis are of the view that it is not only their God-given right, but also their duty, to give their opinion – even to complete strangers – on absolutely everything, whether or not that “everything” even concerns them.

Most common is advice . . . in my case, dating, dieting and doggy (dogging is, I am informed, something completely else). Earlier this week, for instance, there was the elderly lady on Rothschild who deemed it incumbent upon her to inform me that I was endangering the lives of Stuey and Dexxy by not observing the Do Not Walk sign (wonderfully altruistic, I thought, considering that Hezbollah is now in possession of scores of missiles capable of reaching, and destroying, her bidet).

The Israeli, however, does not limit him or herself to the purely prescriptive . . .

Two Saturdays ago, I drove Stuey and Dexxy to see Tal, a friend’s 6-year old daughter – housebound and miserable due to an upset tummy – who is particularly fond of my hairy flat mates, and who had summoned them to Hod Hasharon to cheer her spirits.

It might have been wise, before tucking in, to have spared a thought for the cause of Tal’s stomach ache. And, lo and behold, a short while after being amply fed by my Moroccan hostess, Tal’s mum, my bowels started to feel the effects of her schnitzel and couscous (delicious though they were).

While Edna’s apartment is small, and WC smaller still, I have brilliantly refined, over the years, the subtle art of camouflaging my lavatorial activities in other people’s homes. I don’t wish to give too much away – if the Made Simple or For Dummies people are reading this, you know where to find me – but it involves cleverly synchronizing  eruptions, emissions and plopping (to quote my earlier Blog on the Bog) with the ebbs and flows of living room discussion and/or peaks in television volume.

And on this particularly delicate – the smaller the abode, the greater the risk of social disgrace – occasion, I put in a typically sterling performance. Indeed, even the absence of a canister of air freshener in the poorly ventilated shoebox did not worry me unduly, as I had noticed that Edna had only just exited. The true professional, you see, leaves nothing to chance.

Fortune and fate, on the other hand, are vicissitudes for which even the ultimate pro cannot legislate . . .

Whilst washing my hands in the adjacent bathroom, I heard (who I immediately understood to be) Edna’s ex-husband (and Tal’s father) – whom I had never met, and who was totally oblivious to my presence – enter the apartment, and head straight for the toilet.

“Shit!” I exclaimed to myself. “What stinking luck!” One always likes a few minutes grace after visiting one’s host’s WC.

And my worst fears were confirmed at once, with the uncouth bellowing of “Ed-naaa . . . eifo ha’spray (where’s the spray)?!”

“Shut up!” I silently begged. “Pleeease!!”

I had, now, nowhere to hide.

I mean, I hardly expected a momentary awkwardness, followed swiftly by a forced (and redundant) clearing of the throat and an off-the-cuff comment on the day’s weather – the inevitable English response – off a Moroccan! But, meeting the corpulent, hairy native in the narrow corridor, neither did he deem a cheeky grin and a wink to suffice . . .

“La’briyut, gever (good health, man)!” bellowed the great oaf – clearly delighting in my lavatorial faux pas – as he shook my hand in traditional, Gever Gever Israeli style (i.e., as if trying to yank my arm off my torso).

I was reminded, by way of contrast, of an incident from my youth – at a friend’s parents’ dinner table in the genteel London suburb of St. John’s Wood – when a contemporary’s risqué crack was instantly met, by our friend’s mother, with a totally straight-faced “More meat, Jonathan?”

But the thought of saying nothing on the subject – or, at least, nothing that would heighten my considerable discomfort – had not even occurred to Edna’s ex. And I wouldn’t mind, but it is not as if your average Israeli male has exemplary toilet habits (see a philistine with a small pee).

On the other hand, perhaps I am just, still, a little too sensitive to that male. After all, the episode was nowhere near as humiliating as that experienced by a friend, backpacking Down Under, who – from overenthusiastic eating on suddenly being reacquainted with home cooking – chundered over the seder (Passover) table of his Australian friend’s parents, whom he had just met that same evening.

It was also far less excruciating than that suffered by another travelling friend, who chose the family home of an American girlfriend, no less, to discharge matter that stubbornly refused to be sent on its fetid way. Seeing no alternative – and I jest not – he fished the offending object out of the bowl, wrapped it in toilet paper, and smuggled it out of the house.

Nonetheless, hardly just reward for a well-intentioned visit to a poorly child.

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

Ovadia & Nehemia: Two Ends of the Same Shmekel (Doss vs. Chiloni, Part II)

In Doss vs. Chiloni: Two Sides of the Same Shekel, written during a slight down period (with Tel Aviv especially), I expressed my despair at the ultra-Orthodox/secular polarisation of Israeli society and my longing for the mutual tolerance and respect – relative, at least – which I had known in the Jewish community in the UK.

While I snapped out of that downer some time ago, and am once again certain that I much prefer being a Jew here than anywhere else, I am again feeling the deep, often ugly, religious and even racial chasms within (the purely Jewish constituency of) this country.

Firstly, there has been the shocking – at least to idealists, like me, who believed (or wanted to) that they were living in a modern democratic Jewish state – case of charedi (ultra-Orthodox) Ashkenazim (Jews of European origin) segregating their daughters from charedi Sephardi/Mizrachi (of North African/Middle Eastern descent) girls, at a school in the West Bank town of Immanuel.

Pouring oil on the flames, when this appalling racism was (quite naturally and predictably) challenged in the High Court, the supposed spiritual leader (and former Chief Rabbi) of Israel’s Sephardim, Ovadia Yosef (right), castigated – of all people – the Sephardic petitioner, proclaiming that anyone who “raises his hand against the Torah of Moses” by petitioning the chiloni (secular) High Court “has no place in the World to Come.”

I have made no secret of my contempt for the shenanigans of Israel’s charedim and the disregard with which they treat this, their country: see The Good, the Sad and the Ugly. Moreover, it never fails to amaze me how irresponsible – many would add “malevolent” and “dangerous” – characters such as Rabbi Ovadia succeed in becoming leaders of their own households, never mind entire communities. In 2000, for example, the firebrand ‘Ayatollah’ described the Holocaust as God’s retribution against the reincarnated souls of Jewish sinners (The Independent). Nice.

Then, on June 13, Israel’s Haaretz daily published an op-ed about certain, ostensibly nefarious, activities in the Ramat Aviv suburb of north Tel Aviv:

“At night they lurk among the trees and on benches for the teens, offering refreshments and sweet talk . . . taking in a youngster and destroying a family . . . Where are the police and the municipality as strangers badger children among the trees at night . . . with their butter-wouldn’t-melt smiles?”

Such language, from the keyboard of veteran journalist Nehemia Shtrasler, immediately summoned up images of Mein Kampf:

“. . . the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood . . .”

I would often recite this passage to an old school friend – newly religious, incidentally – who, with similar intent, would prowl the streets of Woodside Park for Scandinavian and Eastern European au pair girls with defences (and, often, soon knickers) down.

But what has actually been going on in the leafy suburbs of north Tel Aviv? Packet-of-sweets-and-cheeky-smile predators? Surely not?!

No. Far worse . . . frummers!

Shtrasler (right) was expressing his disdain for the activities of Chabad Lubavitch hassidim, the presence of Chabad House, and the opening of the organisation’s kindergartens, in the secular heartland of Israel.

How dare they!

And, with sentiments and language as rational as the British fascist’s “they come here, they take our jobs,” Shtrasler documents Chabad’s “organized plan to take control of the neighborhood”. Horror of all horrors, they have even opened a yeshiva (institute of religious learning) – “staffed by ‘messengers’ who are prepared to sacrifice their souls for their Rebbe” (language of Fundamentalist Islam purely coincidental?) – and encourage locals to “keep the Sabbath and follow mitzvot [Commandments]”.

How dare they!!

Experiencing a sudden bout of intellectual and journalistic schizophrenia, Shtrasler then sees fit to quote the late, great Rabbi Elazar Shach: “Chabad is the cult closest to Judaism.” Talk about picking sources to suit one’s story!

Now, admittedly, I do not spend too much time in their company – the last time they tried to get me to put on tefillin (phylacteries), outside a Jerusalem supermarket, I told them I wasn’t Jewish (disgraceful, I know) – but when was the last time anyone heard a Chabadnik tell a child that “their mothers and fathers are sinners”? Or that “people who don’t honor Shabbat are doomed to hell”?

“The sight was elevating,” Shtrasler – now himself sounding like a Chabadnik – describes the 800-strong anti-Chabad demonstration “to protect their homes” and “their values”.

What . . . Tzfonim (north Tel Avivians) with values?!

And, on reaching the very bottom of his extremely deep barrel, Shtrasler notes how Chabadniks “have no problem flouting the law” and that “they build without permits.”

Unlike other Israelis you mean, Mr. Shtrasler?!

Of course, Shtrasler fails to mention any of the fine works for which Chabad is so renowned, not least the warm and generous hospitality it extends to all travelling Jews and Israelis in every far-flung corner of the world. But heimishe (homely) Friday night dinners are, no doubt, of little importance to a man who would probably sell his own mother if he was concerned about fellow leftie ‘intellectuals’ thinking her too Jewish.

The Biblical Nehemia (and this is as close to a Devar Torah as you are ever going to get from me) is believed by some to have been a eunuch. And seeing as “no one whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:1), can Shtrasler’s bitter anti-religiousness perhaps be interpreted as some bizarre, misplaced sense of identification with his namesake?

Anyway, what arrogance! Only, this time, chiloni. But, make no mistake, it is no less hateful than the bigotry of the Immanuel charedim (whom Shtrasler must surely despise even more than the far more worldly ones of Chabad . . . or perhaps not, because at least the former leave him alone).

Indeed, replace “Chabadnik” with “Jew” and “Shtrasler” with “Streicher”, and such poisonous rhetoric (full article) would not have been out of place in Der Stürmer.

At the end of another polemic, in this Monday’s Haaretz, Yoel Marcus – demonstrating that Shtrasler’s language was no one-off – summed up the racial unrest amongst Immanuel’s charedim by referring to a Heinrich Heine poem:

“. . . if the rabbi and the priest could both move back a little; both of them stink.”

To my mind, however, arrogant chilonim such as Shtrasler and Marcus are as much a part of the stench as the charedim whom they so decry.

So much for the “Jewish state”.

Hasmo Legends XIX: The Return of the Rotter-in-Chief

At some point last year, at the height of Hasmo Legends mania, I was contacted by Rabbi David Meyer, the Executive Headteacher of Hasmonean (Boys’ and Girls’). “Dave”, who was in the year above me at Hasmo, was concerned at the damage the series might cause to the careers of the few teachers – in particular, a Bissli-scoffing one whom I had not yet documented – still at the school.

At the end of our conversation, Dave – who has taught at Hasmo for around 15 years – invited me back to the school on my next visit to Blighty. Dave probably forgot the offer the second after he made it . . . but how could I?! In fact, not only did I not forget it, but, straight from Heathrow, on that sunny late-March afternoon, I caught the Tube to Mill Hill East and, then, the 240 up Holders Hill Road.

As I approached the front gate, one of the few Hasmo landmarks still in the same place since I left the nuthouse almost 25 years ago, I was half expecting to be confronted by a crude East End hunchback effing and blinding about DJ (“the facking cant”). Instead, two young Eastern Europeans – folk known to excel in guarding Jews – now manned Jack Rose’s former position. They took my suitcase, and instructed me to report to the school reception just inside the main entrance (beneath the headmaster’s office, adjacent to the hole allocated to the aforementioned Benippled Forehead when he, so shortsightedly, was appointed Deputy Head in the early Eighties).

The first familiar face that I spotted – and it was the last that I had wanted to – on the other side of the locked double doors between the reception and Dave’s office was that of said Bissli scoffer (aka “Flop”). Even though, as a result of my promise to Dave, Flops, Greater and Lesser had been rather less unkind than it otherwise might have, I immediately suspected that Dave might be laying on a warm welcome – never underestimate an ex-Hasmo, even an Executive Headteacher, in the practical joke department – with Flop lying in wait for me in his office. The image of being put across the knee of the big man – who is no doubt relishing his ‘new’ title of “Urrrggh . . . Director of Management Information Systems” – and having my bottom dealt with, but this time aged 42, brought me out in a cold sweat. But I was being unnecessarily paranoid.

After hanging around for ten minutes (and after Flop had already departed the scene), I reminded myself that this was still Hasmonean and that Dave probably had no idea that I was even there – after all, how many times had Rabbi Roberg had me standing outside his office for an entire day, only to mutter irascibly, at four-thirty, “What are you doing here, boy?” – and, as it transpired, he didn’t!

I knew Dave (right) in our school days – when he was universally known, as though his names were conjoined, as “DaveMeyer” – primarily as the cousin of the Hasmo boy with the least imaginative parents: “Sod it,” Dave’s uncle and aunt, the parents of Meyer Meyer (who was in my year), had clearly resolved, “let’s just call him ‘Meyer’.” But I recalled Dave as a particularly likeable bloke. And he still is.

Warm greetings over, Dave immediately took me into the playground – which seemed a lot smaller to a 42-year old – where an immaculately observed fire drill was taking place. How was our generation to take such rehearsals seriously when, as we would pile back into the school building some half an hour later, we would witness the spectacle of “Cyril” calmly descending its main staircase in his trilby and mac?!

In some strange sense, perhaps because I longed to rejoin the “louts” of my day for the afternoon, I was disappointed that these boys looked so human, and were not fighting, shouting, gobbing, and/or pulling each others’ ties (there was absolutely no sign either, during the course of the afternoon, of a black market in confectionery, penny up the wall, or of searches for spare chairs). But it was just so inexplicably wonderful to be back, a feeling of elation and enthusiasm that lasted well into the evening.

I again avoided Flop in the playground, but instantly recognised, in the distance, my 1BK form master from 1978/9. Even though he claimed to have only “heard about” melchett mike (characteristic diplomacy that I immediately understood), it was lovely to catch up briefly with Jonny Bokor (right), who – against all the odds – appears to have maintained both his sanity and geniality.

There followed a tour of the school – which, though still no architectural wonder (there is talk of a move to a new site), is at least now replete with proper, pukka art, wood and metalwork, music and computer rooms, and even a couple dedicated to cooking (“food tech” they call it) and plumbing – throughout which, so completely have the buildings changed, I had to repeatedly ask Dave where we were vis-à-vis the Hasmo of yesteryear.

Despite the physical changes, the place, for me, was still full of Legends past. So, whilst the old gymnasium may have gone, I could not help but imagine a mad-eyed Cypriot, wielding a white Dunlop tennis shoe, emerge from around every corner. And in Room 1 (right) and Room 12 “over the bridge”, I sat in the very same spots that I had enjoyed the happiest, and most hilarity-filled, hours of my life (in the presence of the Legendary son of Swansea, of course).

Whilst elated to be back, I could not help but feel a tinge of regret that our generations were denied the opportunities on offer to the Hasmo boys of today. Entering each classroom and being introduced to young, enthusiastic, and, most shockingly of all, normal teachers (right), was oddly incongruous on the grounds of Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys. Those who joined that Hasmonean kissed goodbye to any chance they otherwise might have had of learning about art, music, geography, or indeed any of the humanities, in any real depth or at all. Moreover, those who were not motivated or self-starters had very little chance in maths and the sciences either (though we were taught how to execute a basketball “lay-up shot” and not to “double dribble”).

Indeed, I am of a generation of ex-Hasmos for whom Art meant being chased up and down a long annexe by a white-bearded lunatic wielding a plank of wood – that he proudly named “Whacko” (though it should probably have been spelt “Wacko”, after its maker) – with a protruding nail strategically positioned at its tip for good measure. So, witnessing the quality of art on display in the Hasmo Art Room (below) was a total revelation . . . like someone reared on Sam Fox and Linda Lusardi chancing upon some private pics of Penélope Cruz.

Today’s Hasmonean also offers pupils a wide array of educational trips and excursions. Whilst Boulogne is still in the brochure (though the Hasmo boys of today probably don’t re-cross the Channel armed with flick knives and pornographic playing cards), pupils can also now visit the art galleries of Paris and the World War One battlefields of Ypres. There is a trip, too, to Poland, and even one to Spain and Gibraltar to learn about Sephardic history (Hasmo’s former religious ‘elite’ would have loved that!)

I was more than a little amused to learn that melchett mike had been raised by concerned parents of prospective new Hasmos, and also flattered that every teacher to whom Dave introduced me had read – and enjoyed – Hasmo Legends. Indeed, in the very office that, on more than one occasion, I had begged (God knows why?!) to be allowed to continue at the school, I discussed with Headteacher (Boys’) Andrew McClusky (above) specific stories that I had written. I was amazed by the particularity of his interest, singling out as he did a story (search “Rabbi Fine”) that had tickled him way back in Hasmo Legends II. And it said much to me about the man and his insight, because – however seemingly insignificant – that story speaks volumes about the attitudes prevalent in the old Hasmonean.

The new Hasmonean is winning both plaudits and awards, and not just for examination results – as a result of deft manipulation of which pupils were allowed to enter which exams, it won those even when it was crap – but also for a progressive, imaginative approach to education, which takes into account that it takes more than Limmudei Kodesh to produce a well-rounded adult.

The best example of this is the so-called “Enrichment Programme”, devised by the two Headteachers. This has nothing to do with brown envelopes stuffed with salary supplements (for JS teachers only, of course!) – as alleged in comments to melchett mike – but rather with providing Hasmoneans with a broader, more rounded education. Allotment Gardening, Aromatherapy and Basic Knitting – and I haven’t even got to “C”! – are amongst the eye-opening courses on offer (apparently without fear that one such might, chas vesholom, trigger a sexual self-realisation before a commitment to a double life, and years of frustration, in Gateshead).

In life, however, every silver lining can also have a cloud. And a truly wonderful afternoon was soured somewhat on my way out through Hasmo’s corridors by a chance sighting on a notice board – like a recognition whilst watching Crimewatch – of a photograph (right, snapped while Dave’s attentions were elsewhere) from its summer walking tour.

“It can’t be . . . surely,” I so wanted to convince myself. “Nahhh, not after all these years. Probably just looks like him.”

Apparently, DJ will, at the end of this current term, have been teaching at Hasmonean for fifty years. A scary thought, considering that I gave up Chemistry O-Level because I couldn’t take another forty minutes of him. Anyway, the school will probably be planning some kind of event to mark the occasion (the West Hendon branch of Al-Qaeda may well be able to come up with something appropriate).

But I was not going to allow even so nasty a surprise to spoil such a special afternoon.

“Everyone told me I was mad to invite you,” Dave confessed. Well, Dave, thank you for ignoring them! I am not naive enough not to realise that Dave’s kind, if impulsive, invitation had more than a little to do with his desire to have something positive written about the changes that have taken place in Holders Hill Road under his stewardship. But that is fair enough. As Dave points out, “probably our hardest battle is explaining that the Hasmonean of today has the same name, but is not the same school as that of the past.”

The odd fact remains that I would not necessarily choose to be schooled in today’s Hasmonean rather than our’s: the total absence of “Yoks” – the school, these days, operates a strict Shomer Shabbos policy – must, almost by definition, take away much of its former colour, just as its newfound normalcy must its unique humour and chutzpah. But would I prefer my children to be schooled in the old Hasmo? No, probably not.

The fact that the “Rotter-in-Chief” was welcomed back at Hasmonean, while the Legend who gave him the title can now only rant from the safe distance of Stamford Hill – and those of his ilk have been replaced by proper, responsible educators – suggests that Dave Meyer & Co. are doing a fine job of dismantling an “institution” . . . but of building a school.

The Two Daves . . . and he’s not talking on his mobile in this one!

Postscript Dave informed me (without any request for assistance) that Hasmonean is running at an annual deficit of around £450,000 (security costs, alone, total over £100,000). If you have enjoyed Hasmo Legends, and feel that you would like to contribute to your former alma mater, please say so via a comment below (but without specifying an amount, to avoid others feeling that what they can – or are willing to – give may be insufficient). I will then forward your e-mail address (from the comment form) to Dave. An extremely generous ex-Hasmo has pledged to match, pound for pound, donations up to a total of £300,000 for each of the next three years . . . so your money will count double!

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part XX: The Witriol Diaries, Part I: Out of the Friern Pan . . . Into the Fire